Sustainability Director at ICL
Lein Tange studied different disciplines: Chemical engineering, process and construction engineering, he finalized in 1992 a post graduate qualification in polymer technology. He started his career in 1978 at Dow Chemical and moved in 1993 to ICL-IP Europe as process/project engineer for flame retardants. He was responsible for the end-of-life programs in different flame retardant associations since 1998 for plastics containing flame retardants. His main projects were: LCA modelling, recycling, sorting techniques, energy- and feedstock recovery for EEE/ ELV plastics and standardization like within IEC111, CENELEC/WEEE. Main focus of scaling up pilot plants up to demo plants for different recycle technologies.
Furthermore, he is a member of the OEWG/SWIG within the Basel Convention since 2012 handling POP waste.
In addition, Lein is, since 2015, one of the initiators and leading as managing director for the PSLoop Demoplant using a dissolution process as a solution for recycling plastics containing restricted BFRs via polymer recycling and destructing the BFRs back into bromine.
He is currently engaged in various recycling projects at pilot scale, specifically targeting Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and End-of-Life Vehicles (ELV) plastics that contain flame retardants. Emphasis is placed on the recovery of bromine and antimony, with the objective of providing viable solutions for WEEE and ELV plastics, thereby contributing to a circular economy.
According to Lein, discovering innovative recycling technologies may not be the most daunting task, the real challenge lies in the ability to scale these solutions to the demonstration plant level, ensuring the positive technical and economic feasibility. This scaling up process demands considerable time, expertise, substantial financial backing, and dependable legislation over a span of 5 to 10 years.