PETpla.net Insider 10 / 2013

EDITOUR REPORTS 29 PET planet insider Vol. 14 No. 10/13 proportion of bought-in ones from all three Coca-Cola Femsa plants. In the meantime, there are also eight Reciclar employ- ees working round the clock in these plants. As the years passed the requirement for increased quality grew and this resulted, in 2002/2003, in a technical upgrade with the purchase of three sorting plants from NRT, USA and later two Titech lines. Sorting equipment as well as cleaning process phases were incorporated and Reciclar has recently purchased a brand new Erema Vacurema Basic. This move means that Reciclar will, for the first time, be embarking on the production of 100% recycled PET granulate. A total of around half of the flakes remains in the home market whilst the other half goes for export. In the past this included customers such as Chile, Brazil, USA, Spain and Belgium, but the problem at the moment as far as export is concerned is the stagnating international price by comparison to the rising costs in Argentina. “Export“, says Auspitz, “is currently a loss-making operation in Argentina, but for us a neces- sary evil“. The problem is the limited size of the domes- tic market. In order to sell the quantities produced it is virtually essential to export. Nevertheless, in response to these unwelcome condi- tions, Reciclar have now also begun to cut back on produc- tion. Auspitz suspects that there is potential for the steady expansion of the internal market as part of the customer base and Reci- clar is also anxious to work towards this. Of the projected figure of approx. 24,000t - 25,000t PET bottles per year, some 20% of material is lost in processing. The remaining 20,000t of flakes are cleaned, sorted and packed in bulk containers. The main cus- tomers in Argentina include Bandex, Treviplast and Paulini S.A., all operating in the PET packaging sector but with the exception of bottles, as Reciclar’s flakes are not authorised for use in bottle manufacture. Here their big- gest competitor is Cabelma, a company that is going a step further and hence ranks alongside the classic bottle-to-bottle recyclers. Cabelma’s products are sold by this company, some back to Coca-Cola. Reciclar‘s long-term goal is the sustained improvement of quality and the associated new investments in techno- logy aimed at further promoting the topic of recycling. www.reciclarsa.com