Large household appliances contain substantial amounts of plastics. At their end of life, these appliances are processed in waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) treatment plants where a mixed plastic fraction is generally obtained after mechanical processing. This paper presents the results of a study conducted to investigate whether the practice of recycling these plastic streams without decontamination can be continued after the introduction of the 1000 mg/kg threshold value for the sum of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in the 2019 recast of the European POP regulation. 25 samples of shredded mixed plastics from large household appliances were collected and analysed by two independent chemical laboratories with regard to various Brominated Flame Retardants (BFRs), heavy metals and tracers of common plastic additives. Results show that the currently applicable threshold values for recycling regarding heavy metals and BFRs are not exceeded in any of the analysed samples. However, relevant amounts of PBDEs (up to 791 mg/kg), tetrabromobisphenol-A (up to 1470 mg/kg) and antimony (up to 1200 mg/kg) were detected, all of which are currently under consideration for more stringent regulation in the EU. Results further show that due to limitations in analytical precision and representative sampling, the quantification of legacy substances in mixed WEEE plastic fractions is very challenging and the level of confidence with which decisions regarding legal compliance for recycling are taken is limited. It is strongly recommended that these challenges are taken into account when new threshold values are defined in order to enable a clean circular economy.

大型家用电器含有大量塑料。在使用寿命结束时，这些电器会在废弃电气和电子设备 (WEEE) 处理厂中进行处理，通常在机械处理后获得混合塑料部分。本文介绍了一项研究的结果，该研究旨在调查在 2019 年重新制定的多溴二苯醚 (PBDE) 总量中引入 1000 毫克/千克阈值后，是否可以继续在不净化的情况下回收这些塑料流的做法。欧洲 POP 法规。两个独立的化学实验室收集并分析了来自大型家用电器的 25 份碎混合塑料样品，涉及各种溴化阻燃剂 (BFR)、重金属和常见塑料添加剂的示踪剂。结果表明，在任何分析样品中，当前适用的重金属和溴化阻燃剂回收阈值均未超过。然而，检测到相关数量的多溴二苯醚（高达 791 毫克/公斤）、四溴双酚 A（高达 1470 毫克/公斤）和锑（高达 1200 毫克/公斤），目前正在考虑对所有这些进行更严格的监管在欧盟。结果进一步表明，由于分析精度和代表性采样的限制，混合 WEEE 塑料碎片中遗留物质的量化非常具有挑战性，并且对回收合法合规性做出决定的信心水平有限。强烈建议在定义新阈值时考虑这些挑战，以实现清洁循环经济。