Advanced mechanical recycling services for plastic

Demand for recycled plastics is rising fast, driven by new regulations and increasing material volumes. The EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), in force since 2024, sets targets for recycled content and recyclability in packaging. At the same time, the End-of-Life Vehicles (ELV) regulation is increasing the use of recycled plastics in the automotive industry, further accelerating demand. Yet quality and consistency remain key challenges.

In mechanical recycling, the polymer structure is not significantly altered, which means the quality of the final material depends heavily on the consistency of the input stream. As a result, conventionally recycled plastics often lack the performance required for demanding applications, such as packaging or automotive parts. 

Turning plastic waste into reliable, high-performance materials therefore requires new approaches across the entire recycling process. 

Mechanical recycling often struggles with variability in input streams, making it difficult to achieve consistent material quality. VTT helps you stabilise and control material properties, improving consistency and enabling more stable production.

Achieve consistent material quality 

Reduce variability in recycled streams and produce polymers with predictable properties. Our intelligent process control adjusts additives and parameters in real time to maintain consistent quality, helping you improve processability and performance.

Optimise your process without disrupting production 

Use our pilot-scale environment to test and fine-tune key parameters, such as washing chemicals, water temperature, water circulation and other process conditions, and to avoid costly interruptions to your own operations.

Scale with less risk 

Validate your process before full-scale investment. Use pilot-scale testing to reduce financial risk, avoid costly large-scale trials and scale based on reliable data. 

VTT brings together material selection, pilot-scale pre-treatment and intelligent process control to address variability and performance across the entire recycling process, from waste to final product.

VTT PlasticsCompass

VTT PlasticsCompass is a structured, workshop-based service that helps you assess current materials and identify more sustainable, regulation-compliant alternatives. It supports decisions on recycled content, recyclability and material formulation, helping you replace existing plastics with solutions that perform in practice. Selected options can be validated through testing, giving you clear, data-backed direction for further development.

Pre-treatment pilot environment 

Our open pilot environment in Tampere enables advanced, sensor-based identification, sorting, shredding and washing of plastic. The process is built from modular units that can be used independently or combined as needed, allowing the process to be tailored to your needs. For example by adjusting, skipping or repeating individual steps.

With industrial-scale equipment, including a shredder producing around 2 × 2 cm flakes and a washing capacity of 100–300 kg per hour, you can test and optimise parameters such as washing chemicals, temperature and water circulation in a realistic setting. Advanced identification technologies, including hyperspectral imaging and embedded machine vision, together with built-in sensors and data collection, support detailed process development.

You can test and fine-tune parameters such as washing chemicals, temperature and water circulation in a realistic setting. This allows you to develop and validate your process without interrupting your own production, reducing risk and avoiding costly full-scale trials.

Advanced mechanical recycling line with intelligent process control

VAREX is a tandem extrusion line with a single-screw extruder and twin-screw extruder. The line is instrumented with in-line analysis units, designed for stabilising and upgrading the quality of recycled plastics. In the process, materials are melted, filtered and combined with additives and/or virgin material to achieve the desired properties and processability. 

What sets VAREX apart is VTT’s software-based intelligent process control. It monitors the recycled plastic stream in real time and automatically adjusts additives and process parameters to compensate for variations in feedstock, such as changes in viscosity or colour.

This helps maintain consistent material quality, even when input streams are not fully uniform, bringing recycled polymers closer to virgin-like performance and enabling use in even the most demanding applications. 

The technology has reached a high technology readiness level (TRL) and is ready for commercialisation, while the system and its control capabilities continue to be developed further. 

Bring us your challenge and we’ll help you solve it. From material development to recycling and end-use validation, VTT supports you across the plastic recycling value chain.

• Validating sustainable material replacements: Structured material assessment and piloting.

• Optimisation of formulations and recyclability: Improvement of additives and recipes for performance, processability and circularity.

• Assessment of recyclability and waste streams: Understanding how materials behave in real waste streams, including identification and sorting. 

• Improvement of recycled material quality: Development of processes and formulations for both mechanical and chemical recycling.

• Validation of end uses for recycled plastics: Demonstration of applications such as films, injection-moulded parts, foams, coatings and 3D printing.

• Assessment of environmental impact: Lifecycle assessments and sustainability analysis to support decision-making.

• Development of strategies and ecosystems, from circular business models to carbon neutrality roadmaps.
• Development of new materials, by polymerising raw materials produced in chemical recycling or other sustainable feedstocks.