A new rPET production unit for the SGT Group
Société Générale des Techniques (SGT) is building a new recycled PET production unit in Rezé, in western France. The Group’s objective is to reach 26,000 tons of rPET per year, thanks to state-of-the-art equipment and the performance of its teams.
The new recycling unit will be located in Rezé, in the heart of the Group’s historic preform manufacturing plant and head office. This new investment reflects SGT’s determination to guarantee a continuous supply of rPET to all its customers, the majority of whom are bottlers in the food sector, 15 months ahead of the implementation of the European Directive 2019/90 which establishes a minimum recycled content requirement of 25% for PET bottles by 2025.
The company had already anticipated market demand, as in 2019, the Group CEO Frédéric Mignot inaugurated his first PET recycling plant, named SGR, in Chalon-sur-Saone in Southeast France.
With an annual capacity of 12,000 tons, SGR produces a premium quality rPET equivalent to virgin PET, suitable for direct food contact and approved by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
“We will be increasing our rPET production capacity to 26,000 tons by mid-2024,” explains Frédéric Mignot. To achieve this objective, the company is equipping itself with the latest technologies, including the new LSP (Liquid State Polycondensation) process from Next Generation Recyclingmaschinen (NGR) for the treatment of post-consumer PET.
In the NGR process, all PET impurities are removed in the liquid phase to meet all the requirements for food packaging. Complying with EFSA and FDA standards, this process also offers higher energy efficiency than conventional SSP applications. In addition, the extraction of contaminants when PET is in the liquid phase enables higher levels of decontamination, particularly for NIAS (Non-intentionally added substances) and bisphenol A.
“We are investing in new technologies and in ecological and energy optimisation,” says Frédéric Mignot. This new site will enable us to reduce our CO2 emissions by limiting the flow of trucks between Chalon-sur-Saone and Rezé. This represents around 250 fewer trucks per year. We’re also planning to recruit production and maintenance operators and technicians – all the people needed to run a site like ours”.
To support its project, SGT has been able to count on financial assistance from ADEME, the Ecological Transition Agency from western France. Work will start in December 2023, with commissioning of the new recycling unit scheduled for the second quarter of 2024.
