Exergy cost associated with polymers recycling in vehicles: from qualitative to quantitative indicators

Implementing a recycling route for vehicle plastics surely represents a challenging mission for a company. In general, the recyclability of automotive plastic is influenced by the nature of the polymer (i.e. the material cannot be recycled or recycling would cause deterioration of its properties) or by the lack of an industrial recycling system. In general, there are several technological and economic barriers that must be overcome through design innovation and logistical measures. Based on these factors, an arbitrary scale has been first developed to translate the qualitative indicators into a numerical score that can be useful for comparing different plastic components in a vehicle. Then, the various indicators have been translated in exergy terms, for giving an idea of the order of magnitude of the resources invested in developing the recycling process. Therefore, a new methodology for including critical recycling factors in the total exergy recycling cost is here presented.