RECOBOARD is a highly-innovative, new technological solution that simultaneously tackles two global environmental big issues, post-consumer plastic waste and deforestation.
The technology, supported by the European Union’s H2020 SME Instrument, and continuously upgraded by Icma's team, takes low-grade mixed plastic waste and converts it directly into a high-performance and cost-effective boards that can find several applications, like for instance in construction as alternative to plywood.
Not only does this technology provide an economic use for low-grade waste plastic that would otherwise likely NOT be recycled, but it also reduces demand for plywood – a major cause of global deforestation.
According to the UN Food & Agricultural Organisation, in 2016 Europe was a net importer of $3.9 Billion of plywood, with a large portion of that material coming from far-away locations such as China, Brazil, Canada and The Russian Federation.
During the same period, Europe exported 8 million tonnes of waste plastic to China.
The RECOBOARD technology opens up the potential for a complete paradigm shift away from the current model of dumping waste plastic on one hand, and importing products made from active deforestation on the other.
Instead, our technology-led vision is one of converting waste plastic locally into a product to be used locally, that is in turn also fully recyclable.