From bales to high-quality PET flakes
Krones Recycling, PRSE 2025 – Booth G41
Krones Recycling, Chinaplas 2025 – Hall 10 Booth W21
Mineral water producer Alma, one of Europe’s leading producers of mineral water, and recycling specialist Veolia have partnered to establish Filao, Belgium’s first PET bottle recycling plant. The newly founded joint venture aims to enhance sustainable packaging solutions and has chosen Krones as its technology provider for recycling processes.
With Filao, Sources Alma has already opened its third recycling site. The company has been operating a plant in Lesquin in northern France for 15 years and another recycling plant in Saint-Yorre in the centre of the country for three years. Both factories are equipped with technology from Krones. In addition to recycling, Alma also relies on Krones technology for its mineral water bottling lines.
The factory had to be ready for operation within a year – from the construction of the buildings to the recruitment of staff and the installation of the production line. Krones supplied the majority of the machines for the Filao line and also played a key role in the design and implementation of the line and harmonised the components. The company naturally benefits from its own recycling expertise, which has been pooled in the independent Krones Recycling GmbH since July 2024 and also has factory planning and project management in-house, which enables overall responsibility with only a few interfaces. At the heart of the recycling system is the MetaPure W-PET washing module, which handles pre-treatment, hot caustic washing and post-washing. For components that Krones does not have in its own portfolio, the company relies on years of co-operation with experienced manufacturers. Such a combination of expertise and cooperation is essential to ensure that the complex recycling process runs smoothly and efficiently.
“We process 40,000 t/a of bottles, which is around 70 per cent of the PET bottles collected in Belgium,” says Plant Manager Mélanie Gregoire, adding: “We produce 4.5 t/h of flakes, but we can increase our output to 6 t/h. Filao is therefore ideally equipped for the future.”
Krones Recycling will be present with its solutions at PRS Europe in Amsterdam and Chinaplas in Shenzhen.