Samenvatting

There is more and more to do on making better use of plastic waste. The plastic issue has been stressed several times by many governments, public agencies, businesses and academics. The concern over plastic waste resulted in plastic roadmaps and plastic pacts that aim to establish a circular plastic economy in different regions. Though, what is much needed to tackle this kind of issue, is the kind of entrepreneurship that uses creativity that kindles innovation for a circular economy. Currently, one of the main issues with regards to plastic waste in Europe is finding application for the use of residual ‘mix plastic’ waste stream. Where mono streams of plastic waste are often successfully recycled, resulting in valuable circular resources, the fraction that remains after sorting, referred to as mix plastic, is left without purpose and is often incinerated. When scrutinizing the issue of valuable use of mix plastic waste, two perspectives are being used in this case study. First of all we map the material flow of plastic waste streams. Although a high level analysis gives an idea of the magnitude of the problem, it is not fit to understand regional situations. Local analysis are needed to identify valuable use of waste and understand where incineration can be prevented. Secondly, circular strategies and end-of-life solutions for putting waste to valuable use are identified and studied. To this end, the business model and operational process of the Green Plastic Factory are scrutinized. In this paper we present the case of the Green Plastic Factory, a production plant to foster the local circular economy. This factory concept can be put into use on a local scale. The Green Plastic Factory adopts a technology referred to as intrusion-extrusion moulding (IEM), which combines the extrusion process with shaping material in a mould: intrusion. This IEM factory set-up can handle high contaminations that are typical for low quality mix plastic. In this way the Green Plastic Factory provides solutions to left-over waste streams, which are typical for household waste.