During the Plastics Recycling Show Europe in Amsterdam in the first week of November, the winners of the Plastics Recycling Awards Europe 2021 were announced, stating that this year’s award winners together have made substantial progress in effective design for recycling, which in turn is defining the path towards more recyclable plastic products and the truly circular use of plastics.

In the seven categories of products contesting for this award, the Automotive and Electrical and Electronic Product was one of them. The European Recycling Award winner in this category is the “Speed Home WLAN” by Deutsche Telekom AG, which is made with almost 100% Post-Consumer Recycled PC-ABS coming from the WEEE (Waste Electrical & Electric Equipment) stream.
The judges praised this appliance for being an excellent example of the circular use of plastics into the same class of everyday objects, while maintaining the visual appeal of the exterior design.

Years of effort have paid off. Since 2018, when MGG Polymers has launched this world first Post-Consumer Recycled PC-ABS from WEEE, numerous high street brands have started to use this tech-plastic of MGG Polymers. For the company’s management, the recycling of PC-ABS represented the start of a whole series of developments at MGG Polymers. Other new types of plastic are planned to be recycled in the coming years. “We are closely observing our target markets and therefore already know today that the composition of plastics in consumer products is constantly changing. After all, today’s electrical appliances are different from they were 5, 10 or 15 years ago,” explains Günther Höggerl, continuing, “Since the company was founded in 2005, we have carried out extensive analyses of the quality of the waste streams delivered to us and can therefore say exactly which types of plastics will increase or decrease in percentage terms over the years. This of course helps us to choose which plastic we want to recycle next”.

PC-ABS is mainly used for housings of high-quality electronic devices. The company is very proud of the fact that this plastic has once again shown to meet all relevant properties including the optical requirements for such high-tech products as routers, setup boxes, beamers and other high-tech products.  “Manufacturers have subjected our post-consumer recycled plastic to numerous tests and certified that this PCR PC-ABS can be used as drop-in replacement for virgin PC-ABS material, and I am pleased that all the hard development work is paying off, as this PRSE recognition shows” says Günther Höggerl.