PETpla.net Insider 03 / 2010

BOTTLE MAKING 25 PET planet insider Vol. 11 No. 03/10 www.petpla.net Mondi Plastics Brief review and up-date of Regional Market Report – South Africa – PETplanet Insider Nos. 03/08 and 04/08 – with reference to Mondi Plastics: Mondi Plastics are part of the large Mondi Group, an international group listed on the London Stock Exchange and with activities mainly in forestry and paper. Huge Mondi eucalyptus forests stretch over the green hills of Zululand. Mondi Plastics is compara- tively small within the group, but never- theless is the biggest plastics activity in the country. The Mondi plants: Wadeville: dedicated to PET pre-  forms and PET bottles. Johannesburg: dedicated to com-  pression moulding, extrusion blow moulding and injection moulding. Cape Town: dedicated to extrusion  blow moulding and injection mould- ing as well as single stage PET injection stretch blowing. In short, PET preforms are converted using the two-stage system in Wadeville only. Single stage systems operate both in Wadeville and Cape Town. Equipment in Wadeville: 3x Husky 144 cavities  1x Husky 128 cavities  1x Husky 72 cavities  2x Husky 48 cavities  5x Sacmi for caps/closures  Husky systems at Mondi in Wadeville There are several single stage machines from Nissei ASB and one from Aoki. The Husky systems handle the massive volume requirements for Coke, the single stage systems from Nissei and Aoki are used for various formats, one of them being a 4l PET bottle with wide mouth to be filled by Coke with syrup/essence from the Coca Cola plant in Swaziland. The technical challenges of PET conversion have also reached Mondi Plastics and South Africa, i.e. light- weighting of PET bottles and caps. Thomas von Hartemüller – Techni- cal Manager - said “We take it step by step. Climatic conditions – high and low altitudes, tropical and below zero temperatures – all influ- ence the degree of lightweighting that is possible in this country. We look to Mexico as a benchmark.” Another challenging subject for Mondi is the first hot fill system, which they put into operation recently and which consists of 1 x 48 cavity Husky system and 1 x 4 cavity Sipa blower. The bottles will be filled with vitamin drinks. “In our opinion multi-layer is not yet catching up”, said Thomas von Hartemüller. “And maybe never will. Blending virgin resin with 10% recy- cled post consumer PET will be a first step. But food contact use has still not been approved.” The above statements reflect the South African market’s feeling on these technical issues.