igus initiates recycling program worldwide for energy chains

By OEM Update Editorial September 8, 2020 10:54 am IST

With its “igusgreen chainge recycling program”, the motion plastics specialist igus is now doing something completely new: users can send their plastic chains to igus for recycling – completely irrespective of the manufacturer.

Only around 16 per cent of the plastic waste produced in Germany is reused for new products, according to the Plastikatlas 2019. Even though a long-lasting plastic energy chain is not comparable with daily throwaway products such as plastic packaging, the question of how to dispose of it still arises at the end of its service life. Normally, the chain is disposed of together with other plastic waste. Recycling rarely occurs as the cost of separating the different materials in a product and recycling them to make usable granulate (grinding) is too high. In most factories, the usual procedure is therefore to remove energy chains from their machines and throw them into industrial waste skips. In most cases, the plastics are then incinerated. igus is now offering an environmentally friendly alternative in the form of the “igus green chainge recycling program”.

Recycling made easy