Plastic Pipes Conference Association # 2023 Lake Buena Vista
Ricardo Pascual
Social awareness with aspects related to the conservation of the environment and sustainability, the acceptance by citizens of the need to reduce consumption, reuse products, repair as far as possible and, fundamentally, the action of recycling at the end of its life, facilitates the availability of recycled plastics on the market for which suitable applications must be sought.
Nowadays, the CEN Standardization Committees related to plastic products are dealing with the percentages of recycled plastics that some standardized products will have to contain in the future, and consequently, in a later stage, this characteristic will have to be also evaluated for those products that wish to hold a voluntary quality mark.
In this frame, AENOR, in line with other actions in the field of circular economy of plastics, defines a certification scheme based on the EN 15343 for the content of recycled material in PVC-U wall structured pipes for non-pressure underground drainage and sewerage.
Considering the lack of availability of a reliable technology for an analytical determination through testing of the content of recycled material in a product, the certification system is based on an audit for the complete production process, including the following stages:
- Analysis of the theoretical design calculations for each diameter and series of defined nominal stiffness.
- Origin, adequacy, traceability and characterization of the recycled material to be used, with clear reference to its pre-consumer or post-consumer origin. These recycled materials must meet the requirements established in the standard for the characterization of recycled PVC, EN 15346, and must arrive at the converter facilities with a CoA defining density, ash content, colour, impurities and particle size.
- Production process, extrusion equipment, feed equipment and coextrusion systems for the manufacture of the pipes. The extrusion equipment must always allow to check on the control screens that monitor the dosage the discharges of material from the different feeders, as well as ensure a final record of the discharges during the production of a batch.
- Verification of the use and calibration of dosing equipment of the extrusion lines
- Final verification throug
All these evidences have to be complemented with the confirmation of the compliance of pipes with recycled content with all the physical, mechanical and performance requirements established in the applicable standard for that product, in this case EN 13476.
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