CIRCULAR ECONOMY- PACKAGING GLASS CONTAINED IN THE INERT FRACTION FROM MBT PLANTS

In Portugal, as in many countries in Europe, Most of the undifferentiated urban solid waste is taken to biological mechanical treatment facilities, where there is, depending on the configuration of the facility, a sorting to separate packaging waste from organic waste, however some packaging waste, such as glass, breaks easily and ends up going through the entire process line and is removed in the step prior to the anaerobic digester, in some cases, as heavy waste. The heavy waste consists of aggregates (glass, stones, ceramics and some seeds). 

In a project financed by Sociedade Ponto Verde, responsible for the management of recyclable packaging waste in Portugal, I had the opportunity to work, together with my master's supervisor and later doctorate, with all the biological mechanical treatment facilities in mainland Portugal , and I analyzed the waste (heavy reject) from all these installations, where there was a high amount of packaging glass. The result of this analysis was published in scientific journals and conferences:

• Dias, N., Carvalho, M.T.,Pina, Pedro. 2012. Characterization of Mechanical Biological Treatment Reject Aiming at Packaging Glass Recovery for Recycling. London, Minerals Engineering, 2012. Volume 29. P.72-76.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mineng.2011.10.004
• Dias, N., Máximo, A., Belo, N. & Carvalho, M. T., 2014. Packaging glass contained in the heavy residual fraction refused by Portuguese Mechanical and Biological Treatment. Recycling, Resource and Conservation, 85. P.98- 105. Volume 85. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2013.09.014