The objective of this study is to develop a new process for recovering both glass and PVB, from car windscreens rejected during production and/or from the Vehicles End of Life Program. This process can also be associated with post consumer plastics available, in significant percentages, in glass container cullet city collections, depending on the total polymer availability that, for economic reasons, must be at least 5,000/tpa. As it is known plastics, and in particular PVB, are strong reducing agents and, to avoid probes during the melting of container glass, must be removed from the cullet before it is recycled. To achieve these objectives, the windscreens are crushed to facilitate the polymer separation and then ground in special mills to reduce the glass size to the level of silica sand. The PVB is separated from glass using special techniques. The organic free glass is then ground producing a powder that is divided in two fractions: "Glassy Sand" that is a new and very interesting raw material for the glass container industry, and "Ceramic Sand" used by the ceramic industry as a partial substitute for feldspar. The recovered PVB and other post consumer plastics are fed to a reactor under vacuum where, in absence of oxygen, at 500 deg C, the polymers crack, mainly into hydrocarbons used for electric and heat power generation.
