news


Cortec boosts recycling at US film extrusion plant


Cortec Advanced Films is to boost recycling operations at its film extrusion plant in Minnesota, USA. The plant is used to make


Cortec’s Vapor Phase Corro- sion Inhibiting (VPCI) films, which are used to protect metal parts and equipment from corrosion during storage and shipping. Now, Cortec will add a


recycling complex at the plant, which will allow it to use 20% recyclate in its product. “Almost nothing goes in the garbage,” said Tim Bliss, CAF production manager. “Now, we’ve started a new project where our customers send their waste back to us, and we recycle it.” In March, CAF began to


reprocess 12,000 lbs (around 5 tonnes) of used VPCI plastic film that had been baled and sent from a major heavy industry manufacturer. In future, it plans to accept more


Cortec says that its new recycling operations will help custom- ers save money


offcuts and used bags from customers – which will pay for shipping costs and offer credit towards future purchases. Cortec estimates it will save


its first recycling partner $10,000-$20,000 per year, and reclaim around 50,000 lbs (23 tonnes) of plastic. It says that other companies are waiting to build a similar recycling partnership. Cortec is also looking to


increase production this year


by modernising its largest extrusion line. A new die and air ring will allow greater productivity and better control over film thickness, says the company. l The company has also introduced a VPCI recycling scheme in Europe. Customers will send their films and bags back to the company’s plant in Croatia, where they will be recycled. ❙ www.cortecvci.com


news in brief


❙ US-based film manufacturer Transcendia has been bought by Goldman Sachs.. Financial details were not revealed. Transcendia – which until recently was called Transil- wrap – makes products including barrier film for food packaging, autoclave bags and Digikote laminating films. Andy Brewer, CEO of Transcendia, said the acquisition would allow the company to “accelerate its strategic growth plans”. Since 2013, it has made five strategic acquisitions. www.transcendia.com


❙ Assocomaplast, the trade association for Italian manufacturers of plastics and rubber machinery, has been renamed Amaplast. The organisation said that the new name ‘sends a positive signal and strengthens the idea of a group of companies that are committed to developing and promoting cutting edge technologies to produce quality products’. www.amaplast.org


Unilever begins scheme to recycle plastic sachets


Consumer products giant Unilever is to use a chemical recycling technique to overcome the problem of waste plastic sachets. The technology, called


CreaSolv, was originally developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineer- ing and Packaging (IVV) in Germany. It is already used to separate brominated flame retardants from waste electrical and electronic


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equipment polymers. Unilever will open a pilot plant in Indonesia later this year, to test the long-term commercial viability of the technology. It plans to set up waste collection schemes for the sachets, before creating new sachets for Unilever products. “We intend to make this tech


open source and would hope to scale the technology with industry partners, so others


FILM & SHEET EXTRUSION | June 2017


– including our competitors – can use it,” said David Blan- chard, chief R&D officer at Unilever. “We know that globally $80-120bn is lost to the economy through failing to properly recycle plastics each year. Finding a solution represents a huge opportunity.” The company has already said that it plans to make all of its of packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025.


Andreas Mäurer, head of


plastic recycling at Fraunhofer IVV, added: “We can, for the first time, recycle high-value polymers from dirty, post- consumer, multi-layer sachets. Our calculations indicate that we can recover six kilos of pure polymers with the same energy effort as the production of one kilo of virgin polymer.” ❙ www.unilever.com ❙ www.ivv.fraunhofer.de


www.filmandsheet.com


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