Site Zero

Site Zero – largest and most advanced

The world’s largest and most advanced sorting facility for plastic packaging is now in operation. With Site Zero, we sort out and enable the recycling of twelve types of plastic. It is with high-quality sorting that we can create circular plastic flows.

About Site Zero

With Site Zero we’re doubling our capacity and will be able to handle 200,000 tonnes of plastic packaging per year. Thanks to cutting-edge technology it will be possible to recycle practically all types of plastic. Today the facility can manage four types of plastic – in the future Site Zero will make it possible to sort and recycle twelve different types. Any small parts of plastic that remain after the sorting process are separated to be sent to chemical recycling, or to become new composite products. At Site Zero, zero packaging goes to incineration.

There is today no other facility in the world that has that capability. We are also preparing for washing and granulation of the plastic in phase two, which is planned for 2025. Then our entire plastic flow in Sweden can become circular.

Om Site Zero

Med Site Zero fördubblar vi vår kapacitet och tack vare banbrytande teknologi tredubblar vi antalet plastsorter som vi kan ta emot och återvinna. Med det kommer i princip all plast kunna återvinnas. Det finns ingen annan anläggning i världen i dag som har den förmågan.

Även förpackningar bestående av sammansatta plastmaterial kommer att kunna avskiljas och återvinnas kemiskt eller bli nya kompositprodukter. Vi förbereder också för att kunna tvätta och granulera plasten i nästa skede, vilket beräknas vara klart 2025. Då kan hela vårt plastflöde bli cirkulärt – i Sverige.

Första klimatneutrala anläggningen

Site Zero kommer att vara helt klimatneutral med noll utsläpp. Anläggningen drivs av förnybar energi och den lilla del plast och övrigt avfall som inte kan återvinnas kommer kunna skickas till energiutvinning utan klimatutsläpp, så kallad CCS, Carbon Capture Storage. Vi har också planer på att producera egen förnybar energi med solceller på byggnadens stora platta tak.

“With Site Zero, we have set a new path for plastic recycling and the rest of Europe. The world needs to follow, to reduce emissions from incineration and the need for primary raw material.”

– Mattias Philipsson, CEO Svensk Plaståtervinning (Swedish Plastic Recycling)

Facts about Site Zero

Size: 60,000m2 (previous plant 15,000 sqm)
Sorting capacity: 12 types of plastic (comparable plants 3-4 types): rigid PP, rigid HDPE, flexible LDPE, flexible PP, transparent PET trays, transparent PET bottles, coloured PET bottles, EPS, PS, PVC, two grades of mixed polyolefin laminates, and metal and non-plastic rejects
Sorting efficiency: Up to 95 per cent of the received plastics can be sorted out and recycled in the next step
Sorting sensors: 60 NIR sensors (comparable plants have an average of 5 NIR sensors, previous plant 19 sensors)
Advanced control system: fully automated process, real-time optimization, artificial intelligence. The different parts of the plant influence and talk to each other, optimizing the sorting process
Reception capacity: 200,000 tons per year of mixed plastic packaging from households (previous plant 100,000 tons per year)
Sorting speed: 1000 packages per second, 42 tons per hour
Total investment: Approximately SEK 1 billion (year 2019–2023). The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Naturvårdsverket) also contributes with a financing of just over SEK 180 million through the climate investment aid programme known as Klimatklivet.