Vinyl record circularity: WEIMA and Wanner support inline production recycling
Record Industry, one of the world’s largest automated vinyl pressing plants in Haarlem, the Netherlands, recycles PVC plastic production waste on site using shredding technology from WEIMA and Wanner.
Inline recycling of production waste
During each pressing process, an approx. 20 mm wide protrusion of PVC material - i.e. the remainder of the puck - is created on the outside due to the process. This is sheared off, giving the record its final circular shape.
Next to each pressing machines is a compact C-series granulator from Wanner in Wertheim, Germany. The production waste is automatically discharged from the pressing machine and transported into the granulator's hopper.
Within seconds, the offcuts are shredded into flakes approx. 4 mm in size and fed to the extruder via a mixing chute. This results in no waste, as the edge trimmings are processed directly inline.
Additional recycling line for defects
For pucks and records that do not meet quality requirements, they have to be processed separately. An additional recycling line is set up next to the pressing machines.
A WEIMA WLK 4 single-shaft shredder was put into operation for shredding predominantly mixed PVC residues. Material can be loaded manually or by forklift from big bags via a conveyor belt.
WEIMA WLK 4 plastic shredder.
Feeding the shuttering panels and PVC remnants onto the conveyor belt.
Shredding of shuttering panels and PVC plastic waste in the WEIMA WLK 4.
The WEIMA shredder pre-shreds the PVC to approx. 25 mm flakes before it is re-shredded to approx. 4 mm granulate via a further conveyor belt with metal detector in a Wanner granulator of the Dynamic series.
Wanner granulator.
To improve the processability of the material, the resulting recyclate is fed through a dedusting system to remove the fine dust from the ground material.
Reusing colorful PVC flakes
The end product is high-quality PVC flakes that can be reused in the record pressing production process. The colorful mixture of flakes creates an individual marbled coloration during pressing.
Colorful PVC flakes.
Thanks to these colorful records, Record Industry now have a 100% recycled product in its range.
