The Development Centre of tooling of Slovenia TECOS, based in Celje, demonstrates that high-quality industrial products can also be created from waste materials. The CEPLAFIB project used plastic waste and newspaper paper, and products for the automotive, packaging and grabbing industries were created.
After years of research, participants in the CEPLAFIB project, of which TECOS is thecoordinator, managed to develop three new families of prototype products usable in the automotive car manufacturing sector, industrial protective packaging and construction.
Innovation demonstrates the usefulness of waste materials, so developers stress the great importance of separate collection of waste materials at their source. But they say: “The world’s population generates around 275 million tonnes of plastic waste every year, of which only 9% are recycled. Approximately 12% of plastic waste is treated thermally and the remaining 79% is accumulated in landfills, landfills or in the natural environment. The circular incition of the CEPLAFIB project introduces a sustainable alternative to recycling of waste plastics and paper in a customized form of composite materials useful for technically demanding industrial products in the automotive, protective packaging and construction sectors.”
In more detail on innovation and the importance of waste separation, Karmen Šemrl discussed with the project manager as well as the Laboratory for Applied Materials in TECOS, Dr. Vesna Žepič Bogataj.