PETpla.net Insider 03 / 2011

MATERIAL / RECYCLING 29 PET planet insider Vol. 12 No. 03/11 www.petpla.net Akij Group The Akij Group is a heavyweight in Bang- ladesh with its population of around 150 mil- lion. Named after its founding father, Sheikh Akij Uddin, the company achieves a turnover of just under €400 million, with a payroll of about 50,000 people. In the 1940s, when the country was still under British colonial rule, Sheikh Akij Uddin had built up the group from the smallest of beginnings: as a trader in jute, the ‘golden fibre of Bangladesh’ into a con- glomerate of enterprises operating in 24 lines of business, which today is managed by his ten sons. Akij is a major player in the cement, printing, chipboard and tobacco industries and operates the world’s biggest jute mill, which employs 7,000 people. Akij is involved in five non-profit-making institutions, includ- ing a hospital, an orphanage and a college. The target ratio is 50 : 50 The washing module can be run for as long or as short a time as the client prefers. The downstream decon- tamination module, which refines half of the non-food-grade flakes, uses rel- atively high process temperatures and should run with as few interruptions as possible, in order to make best use of energy – which is what it does. The food-grade flakes obtained at the end of this process are used by Akij directly for making PET preforms. The three Sipa and Husky injection-mould- ing machines for in-house preform production are located in an adja- cent hall and specially equipped for processing flakes. At present, AFBL is working with a mixing ratio of 30 - 40% RPET flakes and 60 - 70% new material (granulated). The target ratio is 50:50. The 30:70 / 40:60 mixture is used to make white preforms for cola, juices and water and green ones for two lime-based soft drinks. In future, P.B. Barua also aims to produce brown bottles from recycled flakes, for the company’s ’Speed’ energy drink. Kerbside collections The Akij Group obtains the start- ing material for the recycling line exclusively from kerbside collec- tions in Bangladesh. It requires at least 12t/day in order to ensure the decontamination module is constantly working to capacity. About 50 size- able collection centres and many more smaller contact points have covered about half of the nation’s ter- ritory, so far. The plans are to extend the catchment area step by step to include all of Bangladesh. Akij buys the merchandise by weight from subcontractors. Since the project was started, the price per kilogram has already doubled, from around 20 to 40 eurocents, because Akij finds itself bidding for the raw material in direct competition with foreign recy- cling companies. So the PET recy- cling line’s cost-efficiency is all the more important. The material arrives in the bever- age factory’s courtyard in big bags or already compressed. It is in very poor condition, which presents a real challenge. It is mixed with contain- ers made of different types of plastic, and collected at a host of different locations in Bangladesh. The propor- tion of dirt and sand is very high and the oil content is far from negligible, as beverage bottles are in Bangla- desh often misused as oil storage containers, with consequent difficul- ties downstream. Pre-sorting is very important in order to ensure the req- uisite starting quality of the material for the recycling line. This separa- tion function, sorting out non-plastic materials, different types of plastic (including multilayer), or sorting into the different colours encountered, can be handled automatically, semi- automatically or by hand. Akij has opted for manual presorting. FDA approval “Approval by the FDA was par- ticularly important for us”, explains P. B. Barua. “We do, of course, monitor both flake quality and bottle quality on a permanent basis, with checks on IV value, moisture, density, crystallisation and colour. What’s interesting for us is the fact that the system runs fully auto- matically. For the Krones process, the intrinsic viscosity doesn’t have to be as high as for other technologies, which is a definite advantage. The recycling line is high-tech kit, which is why we have to be able to rely on the manufacturer; we need fast feedback and good ser- vice support.” Akij recycles; Bangla- desh profits. www.krones.de  www.akij.net The bottle-to-bottle decontamination module has at Akij been installed on an area of just under 190m². Decontamination proper is handled in a vacuum reactor.