PETpla.net Insider 09 / 2010

REGIONAL MARKET REPORTS 20 PET planet insider Vol. 11 No. 09/10 www.petpla.net After a slow start in 1992, when France engaged in household waste recycling, industry and beverage compa- nies have now accepted a legal responsibility to recycle or value the packaging that they market. For packaging (PET, glass, carton and cans) they pay a “green dot” tax to Eco- Emballages. There is no deposit system in France but PET recycling has become a success story. In total 225,000t of packaging materials, i.e. 6.4 bil- lion bottles (21.7% of all plastic packaging material), were collected, of which 160,000t were in PET and 65,000t in HDPEP/PP. The post consumer PET is reprocessed in multiple steps from returned bottle to food-approved granu- late. Experiments with flakes apparently have not yet been concluded. 15% of recycled granulate went back into bottles in 2008 and 24.5% in 2009, with the balance being used for fibre (more than 50%) and sheeting. But not only collection and recycling of PET bottles is a success. The use of recycled granulate (and in some instances also flakes) with food contact approval in bottle- to-bottle applications is on the way. Blending of virgin PET with 25% post-consumer PET has become the accepted norm and overall typical usage rate. Alma-Roxane and Danone are targeting an even higher percentage blend. In order to achieve such ambitious goals beverage industries have established: Eco-Emballages Eco-Emballages is part of Pro Europe, the green dot umbrella organisation. So far 28 countries have adopted the green dot system. Eco-Emballages mission is to: Implement selective collection and sorting, and provide  finance from green dot money. Organise recycling with appropriate local city councils.  Eco-Emballages is a private, non-profit making com- pany set up to pay municipalities for collecting and sorting. With 150 people, it is 70% owned by fillers, 10% by retail business, and 20% by material producers of steel, alumin- ium, paper, glass and plastics. At present 63% of all house hold packaging is collected. In 2012 75% are targeted and Eco Emballages has to cover 80% of municipality costs. The current Eco-Embal- lages budget is about 450 million Euros. Valorplast Local councils have waste collection and sorting pro- grammes in place and use different ways to sell packaging waste material and guarantee the effectiveness of recy- cling, including Valorplast for plastics streams (PET, HDPE/ PP, PVC). Valorplast is part of Epro (European Association of Plastics Recycling and Recovery Organisations) operat- ing in 15 countries. Valorplast, also a private company, will buy post con- sumer PET bottles from city councils and sell to processors at market price. With 20 employees the company is 60% owned by Plastics Europe (resin producers) and 38.5% by Elipso (Trading Association of Plastic Processors) and 1.5% by Fédération de la Plasturgie. Recyclers in France – clients of Valorplast There are some 20 recyclers in France producing granulate and flakes from PET bottles collected and sorted. These include: APPE is the largest recycler with an input capacity of  45,000t (pellets for bottle-to-bottle food approved) Followed by France Plastiques Recyclage with a poten-  tial 40,000t Danone is investing in recycling, starting production in 2010 (pellets for bottle-to-bottle food approved) Wellmann France Recyclage in Verdun (flakes to fibre)  30,000t Sorepla in Neufchateau 50,000t . A bigger portion of  PET flakes and a smaller portion for HDPE/PP. Of 225,000t of PET and HDPE/PP bottles collected and sorted 160,000t of PET are re-processed and are available for re-use in:. Approx. 45% in fibres from post consumer non-food flakes  Approx. 22% in sheets from post consumer non-food flakes  Approx. 20% in bottles from food grade pellets (and flakes)  Approx. 11% in strapping from non-food flakes and pellets  The balance is used in other applications. Conse- quently the biggest portion of recycled material flows into textiles. More than 30,000t return to bottles and are re- used in a bottle-to-bottle application. The recycling fever and the growing recycling markets are a challenge and an opportunity for the machine manu- facturers: namely in the washing process from bottle to flakes, the extrusion process from flakes to pellets and for post condensation and final bottle-to-bottle processing. Erema and Bühler are suppliers most often seen in the world of recycling. Krones has joined the recycling market recently with a system to produce bottle grade PET flakes. At Drinktec 2009, Husky also introduced its HyPET Recy- cled Flake (RF) system, which is optimized for manufactur- ing preforms with up to 50% post-consumer, recycled PET flake.