Shredder Residue Composition

Shredder residue is not a single material — it is a mixture, and its composition determines both how hard it is to recycle and how it should be processed. The blend that leaves a shredder is dominated by plastics and rubber, with glass, fibres, foam and residual metals making up the balance.

The exact split shifts with the feedstock. Residue from shredding cars leans heavier on plastics, rubber and textiles, while residue from white goods and appliances adds more glass and other mineral content.

Why the Mix Matters

The energetic fraction — the polymers and rubber — carries the fuel value that a gasifier converts to power. The metals, even in small fragments, carry the highest commodity value if they can be recovered. The mineral and glass fraction can be stabilised into an aggregate.

That three-way split is why mechanical sorting alone struggles with shredder residue: the materials are bound together at small particle size and are costly to separate. A thermal route, by contrast, accepts the mixture as-is and separates it by behaviour rather than by hand.

An Average Worth Recovering

Klean’s automotive-shredder-residue reference plant runs on a residue with an average calorific value of 14.3 MJ/kg — an energetic feed that sustains gasification and power generation while the metals and minerals are recovered in parallel. That is the point of composition analysis: it proves the material has value worth unlocking.

Learn More About Processing Shredder Residue

• Automotive Shredder Residue Gasification Plant
• Solid Waste Recycling
• What Is Gasification?
• Feasibility Studies

Partner With The KleanTeam to Unlock the Whole Residue

Safe. Clean. Profitable. One Proven Partner.

Klean Industries analyses shredder-residue composition up front and matches it to the right gasification process, so operators recover energy, metals and aggregate from the same stream rather than landfilling the mix.

Klean’s Key Advantages:

• ✅ An operating ASR gasification reference plant treating up to 20 t/h of shredder residue.
• ✅ Thirty-plus years engineering commercial gasification and waste-to-energy plants.
• ✅ 3 recovered carbon black (rCB) plants built in India over the past 2 years.
• ✅ KleanLoop blockchain provides end-to-end feedstock traceability.

Ready to characterise and recover your shredder residue?

Speak with a Solid Waste Expert at Klean Industries » GO.