PETpla.net Insider 04 / 2015

PET news 6 PET planet insider Vol. 16 No. 04/15 www.petpla.net And the winner is… EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2014 Marking the seventeenth year of the Swiss EY Entre- preneur of the Year Business Award, this coveted individual business accolade in the Industry / High-Tech/ Life Sciences category was presented to: Mr Otto Hofstetter, proprietor and CEO of Otto Hofstetter AG in October 2014. The competition, organised by EY, is a global event, based on rigorous criteria, and every year, in more than 60 countries and 145 cities entrepreneurs compete with each other. The winners are selected by an independent jury. Otto Hofstetter has been declared the winner in the Industry / High-Tech / Life Sciences sector. This corporate group manufactures injection mould- ing tools, with PET as its chief mainstay. The company has been involved in this sector since the end of the 1970s and has established itself as the undisputed No. 2 on the world market. Preforms moulded using Otto Hofstetter moulds are manufactured and processed throughout the world. Through its branches in India and China, Otto Hofstetter AG enjoys vital proximity to the largest PET producers in the world. Award winner Otto Hofstetter took over the company from his father in 1997 and equipped it to face the chal- lenges of the 21st century. He invests significantly in keep- ing his machines updated, and recruits his staff on a global scale. Quality is the top priority and the 24-hour worldwide service facility offered is regarded as excellent. Group exports amount to almost 100%. Despite the group’s global emphasis, Otto Hofstetter him- self still retains strong links with his home region, as Chair- man of the Board of the Linth Region Debt Restructuring Fund and as a networker for the University of Rapperswil. www.otto-hofstetter.ch More than 150 people attend PRF Recycling Forum and Gneuß Open House On 4th March 2015, machine manufacturers, recyclers and technicians gathered in Bad Oeynhausen, Germany to learn more about the latest developments in the collec- tion and processing of used polyester bottles. This year’s forum once again demonstrated that there is an ongoing interest in the specialist field of polyester recycling. Dr. Ulrich Thiele from Polyester Technology reported about the state of the polyester recycling industry in China. With a collection rate of over 90%, approximately 3 million tonnes of used PET bottles are collected in China. Along with another 2 million tonnes of imported waste bottles and 1.4 million tonnes of waste from polyester fibre pro- duction, over 6 million tonnes of polyester recyclates are processed in China, primarily to make fibres and filaments. David Swift from PCI gave a detailed overview of market trends in polyester manufacturing and recycling on a global level, with a focus on Western Europe. According to his summary, there is significant potential for improving the current collection rates of around 30% in the USA and around 55% in Western Europe. This would also contrib- ute to increase the currently low 75% capacity utilisation level of recycling plants. Further presentations covered RAL quality standards for PET recyclates, different flake-to-resin (FTR) pro- cesses, sorting and washing of bottles, bottle-to-bottle (B2B) recycling, the multi-rotation system (MRS) from Gneuß, a new SSP process called “Moby” and the con- verting of PET bottle waste into textile filaments, among others. www.gneuss.com