Recently Sorema - division of Previero - delivered and put in operation a new designed RPET wash line with 4 tons/h output capacity at an East-European recycling company. The system allows to process the most contaminated bales of PET bottles, converting them in high quality RPET flakes. This new process combines the advantages of the bottles pre-washing (wet‐process) with dry and clean environment after the wet pre-washing system.

The machine cleans the surface and removes the labels of the bottles, including the shrink labels, completely separating them from the bottles immediately after the pre‐washing phase. The process is designed not to allow the water to enter the bottles. This was the major cause of the water dripping using the traditional pre-washing technology. The possibility to run clean, labels-free bottles, without water dripping, improves the efficiency of the whole recycling operation, providing all the advantages deriving from sorting and grinding the cleaned material after the pre‐wash phase.

The quality of the RPET flakes is excellent, and the new process reduces the operating costs with lower consumption of energy, chemicals and water. Also the space requirements are considerably reduced. The advantages of this new concept will make it possible to reconsider the dry phase approach before the wet grinding.