This year’s Erema Discovery Day - now well known throughout the industry - was held at the Erema headquarters in Ansfelden (Austria) on June 1, 2016. Over 250 international customers and interested guests once again found the technological edge of the Austrian global market leader convincing this year as Erema, in collaboration with Sipa, the Italian company with 30 years of experience in the manufacturing of preform/bottle production and filling plants, presented the recycling system Xtreme Renew. This achievement enables direct and flexible processing of washed PET flakes to produce preforms, signalling the dawn of a new era in PET recycling. From sorters and washing plant manufacturers to downstream producers, fillers and brand owners, representatives from the entire PET recycling value chain were present at the Discovery Day. The expectations of the interested attendees were high as, further to the currently low oil price, the conclusion may be drawn that PET recycling is not profitable at the moment. “In my experience with customers, the reason why a producer decides in favour of a major investment in a recycling solution is based on a broad-sighted, entrepreneurial approach. Only those companies which are willing and able to adapt will remain in the constantly fluctuating plastics industry in the long term. Thanks to the collaboration with Sipa we make it possible for plastics producers to show the necessary flexibility”, says Christoph Wöss, business development manager for bottle applications at Erema.
The cooperation between two big players in the plastics industry made it possible to develop a direct processing solution which stands out through better preform quality characteristics when using rPET. The food contact compliant melt produced by Vacurema runs when hot and thus without the otherwise common, intermediate cooling stage in pellet production directly into the Xtreme production process developed by Sipa to make preforms in a single step. The benefit of this direct processing, therefore, is an enormous boost in energy efficiency plus considerably lower thermal damage to the PET material.
Enrico Gribaudo, Sipa General Manager, notes: “We are proud to have developed such a sustainable product together with Erema. Sustainable in the sense of the company and sustainable in the sense of the environment. Moreover, the processing gives you unrivalled benefits in logistics. Xtreme Renew not only saves space, carbon dioxide and energy, it also reduces costs”.
Some 1.2 million tons of PET are already recycled every year around the world with Vacurema technology for end products such as preforms for the beverage industry as well as for thermoforming sheet, fibres, strapping etc. This shows that recyclers and producers can count on flexibility in their production processes to react to fluctuating economic factors. The claim of adaptability applies likewise to the highly efficient Erema’s MPR, which can be retrofitted to existing extrusion lines.
Decontamination, drying, dedusting and crystallisation of different PET input materials take place in just one step. As a result, the washed PET material is already food contact compliant prior to extrusion. Therefore, Vacurema technology offers a very high degree of flexibility in PET recycling which is enhanced even further through the successful collaboration between Erema and Sipa.
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