The economy activity is increasingly harmful to the environment therefore changes are needed and in particular more support for cleaner technologies will be necessary, in the future, to stimulate the transition to a sustainable economy. The objectives? To reduce risk for health and environment by preventing pollution where it is generated. From this point of view separation technologies can give an effective advantage and in particular where "recycling" and/or "minimisation" have the priority. Development of more efficient process technologies for the internal reuse of waste (substitution of raw material) must be stimulated. Furthermore, an incremental extension of efficiency improvements for the productive processes is required to increase competition in a market characterised by oversupply, or rather the client chooses. In this paper the application of separation processes to improve recycling materials has been analysed from the economical and environmental viewpoint.