PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2011

NEWS 7 PET planet insider Vol. 12 No. 05/11 Performance Filling & Capping Labelling Blowing PET Engineering improves efficiency and profitability 2010 Engineering, design and consultancy company PET Engineering finished 2010 with record figures in terms of efficiency and profitability, following the implementation of its policy focus on costs, a series of investments and various strategic decisions. Costs and expenses were reduced by more than 12% compared to Year 2009, fol- lowing a change in the struc- ture and classification of costs and expenses. An internal reorganisation, reduction of waste and an improvement in teamwork have emphasised maintenance, improvement in product quality standards, services, and internal opera- tions. EBITDA were more than 26%, 5% points higher than the previous record levels of 2008. Thanks to these record results, PET Engineering has decided to invest in vanguard instru- ments for its R&D area and to improve the architecture structure of the technological centre. The company’s con- tinuing expansion policy has led to the opening of a new Commercial Agency Depart- ment in Barcelona, Spain, which is intended to provide better service to the Iberian and South American markets. www.petengineering.com APPE increases production of recycled PET APPE, a division of LSB and formerly known as Artenius PET Packaging Europe, has invested an additional €10 million at its dedicated PET recycling plant in Beaune, France. The investment will enable the company to increase the plant’s annual production by 40%, from 25,000 to 35,000t. The additional 10,000t output capac- ity has been achieved by the installation of (currently) the largest single washing line in Europe. An additional extruder, bringing the total at the plant to four, takes the washed flakes, ensures they are free from organic impu- rities and turns them into recycled pellets. The higher output is produced from over 46,000t of post-consumer PET, equivalent to removing around 1.5 billion PET bottles from the waste stream. APPE’s products made from recycled PET include SuperCycle food grade and Nu-Cycle non-food grade resins. SuperCycle is produced via a solid state polymerisation (SSP) process, which converts a PET bottle into food-grade material equivalent to virgin resin. 28,000t of the output at Beaune is SuperCycle material. The plant collects post-consumer PET from across Europe; 65% originates from France, 15% from Belgium, 10% from Germany and 7% from Italy. www.appepackaging.com