PETpla.net Insider 03 / 2011

The food-grade flakes obtained at the end of this process are used by Akij directly for making PET preforms. MATERIAL / RECYCLING 22 PET planet insider Vol. 12 No. 03/11 www.petpla.net Krones bottle-to-bottle PET recycling line* Bangladesh recycles *based on an article by Udo Lanzinger, Krones AG Production has now commenced on one of the first Krones bottle-to-bottle PET recycling lines in Bangla- desh. Akij Food & Beverage LTD. (AFBL), a subsidiary of the multinational Akij Group and a newcomer to the soft-drinks market, recognised the opportunities offered by recycling PET containers from kerbside collections. In parallel with the installation of its fifth Krones bottling line, Akij invested in this high-tech recycling line with washing module and decontamination module and is already able to substitute recycled PET flakes for 30% of the PET raw material required in its in-house PET preform and con- tainer production operation. Cost savings and increasing independence of the global market for PET raw material are the direct consequences of this investment. A newcomer to the beverage market The Akij Food & Beverage Com- pany was established as recently as 2004, and marked Akij Group’s first entry into a market that was new to the organisation. The company was set up “because we wanted to meet the demand for products made in Bangladesh to global quality stand- ards, and we expected this market to offer us huge opportunities”, explains Sheikh Jamil Uddin, who is responsi- ble for the group’s marketing opera- tions. Akij Food & Beverage con- centrated on soft drinks, water, fruit juices, milk and snacks, and grouped all of these divisions together in a new factory, located in Krishnapura, Dham- rai, 50 kilometres outside the capital, Dhaka. “For our founder, quality had always been the top priority”, Sheikh Uddin emphasises, which is why this visionary entrepreneur formulated the following maxim: “Uncompromising quality even in adverse market situ- ations is the main force behind our success.” Recycling helps to reduce garbage The decision to install an in-house PET recycling line was finally arrived at after a long hard look at the pocket calculator, by heeding the manage-