PETpla.net Insider 09 / 2013

EDITOURS REPORTS 30 PET planet insider Vol. 14 No. 09/13 www.petpla.net It is only once they get to the second washing plant that Empacar can deal with the stragglers. At the moment there are 1,000t awaiting recycling Currently Empacar boasts a capacity of 12,000t/a flakes. A proportion of these goes into direct sales, but the majority ends up in the company’s own Starlinger bottle-to- bottle plant. Installed in 2009, the installation now pro- duces 7,000t/a under the Ecopet brand name. At the time the decision to opt for Starlinger brooked no argument, although they did need the approval of Coca Cola, who did not have any comparable equipment at the time. And again, Coca Cola is one of the driving forces as far as Ivo is concerned. They are keen to have at least 10% r-PET in their preforms. Something which poses no problem for Carlos. He is tending to focus on incorporating more bottle- to-bottle material in his preforms. He has customers who are anxious to have up to 60% Ecopet. The Starlinger bottle-to-bottle plant in classic construction Preforms are produced on 6 Husky injection moulding systems featuring 56 to 72 cavities. The injection mould- ing machines are fed from the dryers and, in particular, the Piovan blenders. Carlos is able, via the blenders, to feed r- and virgin PET in a fixed ratio. Each machine is fed directly from big bags. Carlos is not keen on central silos; with the big bags he can be sure that he always has the correct material at the correct machine. The preform bay is constructed the opposite way round. The injection moulding side is located in the middle of the bay, in front of this is the Piovan blender which draws on an R-PET and a virgin PET Big Bag alternately. Empacar is now retrofitting its Piovan dryers with gas heating. Gas is available in Bolivia and has the advantage of being reasonably priced. The electric heaters are never- theless retained at the plant as a standby. www.empacar.com.bo Empacar collects the PET bottles direct from the collection companies in Santa Cruz. One Big Bag holds 120kg of bottles 360° 360° 360° 360°