RECYCLING AND GRANULATORS | MACHINERY
Recent innovations in plastics recycling include integrated machines that combine shredding and granulation, increased digital control and a closed- loop process for PET food trays
Crushing it: developments in recycling & granulation
Recycling takes many forms and now takes place across the entire extrusion process – whether this is in the form of using recyclate-based raw materials, or machinery that recovers waste material during production. A recycler in Spain has identified a way to apply
Reactive Recycling technology from Nexam to enable closed loop recycling of food trays – pre- venting incineration or landfill. The collaboration, which began earlier this year, has passed through commercial discussions and initial trials. The first full-scale production run will convert 750 tonnes of PET into upgraded raw material for new food tray production. The contain- ers would otherwise have been incinerated or removed from the recycling loop. The move is expected to save around 1250 tonnes of CO2e. “This is the first order to a PET recycling com- pany – a player further upstream in the rPET value chain than our current customer base,” said Henrik Bernquist, business manager for recycling, added.
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“Despite the relatively small size of the order, the environmental impact and the future business potential are substantial.” While PET bottles are commonly recycled, trays
are currently not to the same extent. Ronnie Törnqvist, CEO of Nexam Chemical,
added: “This is an exciting new application area where we see large potential, as more companies venture into recycling of other sources of PET rather than just bottles.”
Recycling network Republic Services and Ravago have created Blue Polymers, a partnership that they say will help advance circularity in the plastics industry. Blue Polymers is developing a network of facilities designed to produce 100% post- consum- er recycled products to supply plastic manufactur- ers’ growing demand for sustainable solutions. Its new facilities will use recycled polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) from Republic’s polymer
October 2023 | FILM & SHEET EXTRUSION 13
Main image: Cleaning and sorting plastic before recycling helps to improve the entire process
IMAGE: POLYSTAR
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