Assessment of brominated flame retardants in a small mixed waste electronic and electrical equipment (WEEE) plastic recycling stream in the UK

Identifying the presence of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) within individual polymer types prior to extrusion has given us a unique perspective on which polymers may be problematic in meeting European Union (EU) low persistent organic pollutant (POP) content limits (LPCLs) and potential for mixed engineering plastics (MEP) used as viable recycled product. Our findings suggest that careful management feed chips could deliver extruded pellets meet EU LPCL values POP-BFRs (i.e. <1000 mg/kg). Within this study, three fractions (“light”, “medium”, “heavy” MEP) were created using density separation. Each fraction was characterised 28 legacy novel BFRs with diphenyl ether-209 (BDE-209) (68–37,000 mg/kg) tetrabromobisphenol-A (TBBP-A) (17–120,000 both predominant ubiquitous. Portable X-ray fluorescence (XRF) utilised measure Br 120 MEP various types. Those XRF flagged having high concentrations (>2500 subjected further evaluation BFR via mass spectrometry analysis results compared data. This revealed 22% studied, incorrectly identified exceeded. data also identifies decabromodiphenyl ethane (DBDPE) 1,2-bis(2,4,6-tribromophenoxy) (BTBPE) derived from waste electronic electrical equipment (WEEE). While “light-MEP” samples contained POP-BFR below LPCLs, “medium-MEP” “heavy-MEP” exceeded such limits. Management by colour sorting resulted significant reductions all clear not exceeded; however, concentration white insufficient LPCLs.