The development of groundbreaking recycling technology for mixed, low-grade thermoplastic waste

胶合板是一种用于建筑行业的工程木材产品。主要的关切与胶合板和砍伐森林有关，生产胶合板所使用的原木的合法性受到质疑。中国是世界上最大的胶合板生产国和出口国。中国制造的胶合板大约50%的木材来自非法来源。除了中国，其他主要的非法伐木国家，如巴西和印度尼西亚，为欧洲提供了胶合板的大部分需求。不仅是用未经认证的木材制造的胶合板，而且用来粘合薄木层的胶水本身也是非常有毒的。由于原材料和成品胶合板的跨全球运输，胶合板的体现能量非常高，这加剧了胶合板对环境的负面影响。还存在许多最终用户问题。对于模板的使用，主要的建筑应用，胶合板板材必须由人员精心地“上油”，以防止混凝土永久地粘合在板材上。然而，外皮几乎总是会在一些板材上发生分裂，导致它们不适合进一步使用。此外，胶合板的使用寿命很短，因为它天生就容易受潮。在模板应用中，相同的胶合板在被作为废物处理之前可以被使用不超过5次。每年产生30万吨胶合板废物，其中大部分最终进入垃圾填埋场。该项目寻求开发技术来处理不需要的低等级废塑料，其中20万吨目前被送往英国的垃圾填埋场，并将其转变为一种环保且经济实惠的高性能胶合板替代品。EcoPanel技术的成功开发将在市场上上市5年后带来5000万英镑的累计收入。

Plywood is an engineered wood product used in the construction industry. Major concerns arelinked to plywood and deforestation, with the legitimacy of the raw timber used in theproduction of plywood under question. China is the largest producer and exporter of plywoodin the world. Approximately 50% of the timber used in Chinese manufactured plywood comesfrom illegal sources. Along with China, other major illegal-logging offending countries suchas Brazil and Indonesia supply Europe with the majority of its plywood demand. Not only isplywood being manufactured with non-certified timber, but the glue itself used to bondtogether the thin wood plies is of a very toxic nature. The negative environmental impact ofplywood is compounded by the fact that its embodied energy is significantly high due to transglobaltransportation of both the raw timber and the finished plywood product.Many end-user issues also exist. For use in formworks, the predominant constructionapplication, plywood sheets must all be meticulously “oiled” by the personnel in order toprevent the concrete permanently binding to the board. However, splintering of the externalskin will almost always occur in some sheets, rendering them unsuitable for further use.Additionally, plywood’s short operational lifespan is compounded due to its inherentweakness to moisture. In a formworks application, the same plywood sheet can be used nomore than 5 times, before being treated as waste. 300,000 tonnes of plywood waste isgenerated annually, most of which ends up in landfill.This project seeks to develop technology to take unwanted low-grade waste plastic, of which>200,000 tonnes is currently sent to landfill in the UK, and turn it into an eco-friendly andcost effective high performance substitute to plywood. The successful exploitation of theEcoPanel technology will result in cumulative revenue >£50m after 5 years on the market.