PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2015

EDITOUR REPORT 11 PET planet insider Vol. 16 No. 05/15 www.petpla.net Tunisia Downtown meeting with Green Line Bottle sorting at Green Line Green Line | April 29, 2014 We met: Mr Slim Baghdadi, Director The Green Line company, whose HQ is located in the centre of Tunis, is a company totally dedicated to the busi- ness of recycling, and in particular PET. Green Line, part of a multinational group, is itself made up of six recycling units and eight offices. The company originated in the col- lective experience of the waste management sector which began in Saudi Arabia and incorporated sorting lines from a company belonging to the same group and headquartered in Dubai. It was here that, in 2006, a major sorting unit for household waste was installed. At the time it was projected to handle a recycling volume of around 2,000 tonnes, a figure that has since doubled. “We were keen to apply the same operational principles in Tunisia and to concentrate on the process end of materials, i.e. the stuff that ends up on dumps or in the street“, said Mr Slim Baghdadi, Director of Green Line. A national promotional programme for recycling projects contributed to the decision. “Although it was difficult to obtain a licence from the government, we started with a couple of collection centres for PET and other plastics, as well as for cardboard packaging and paper. However, our focus was predominantly on PET“. The process begins with a preliminary sorting of the materials at the collection points. The next stage, which takes place inside the plant itself, is to sort the waste by colour. Around 5-6 tonnes of material end up at every Green Line collection point each day. This volume, although substantial, is insufficient to justify invest- ing in automatic sorting, and this work is therefore carried out entirely by hand. If Green Line’s partners are included, the annual volume produced amounts to around 10,000- 12,000 tonnes. The overall condition of the incoming PET bottles is very good; contamination with dirt, the classic pol- lutant, is quite simply avoided. However, collecting, sorting, compressing and subsequent marketing is far from being the whole story. The export of bales made from materials that are essentially unmodified is really difficult and the only way to overcome this hurdle is to create added value. The com- pany’s response was to acquire a crusher and shredder for PET bottles, and this process was complemented in 2009 by the purchase of a washing line that has been installed at another location, 140 km away from Tunis. All the machinery has been supplied by the Turkish company Ustin. Up to 2011, Green Line exported its flakes mainly to the Far East, with China the principal market, and also to Turkey, to a company that manufactures PET fibre from the recycled material. “Asian markets tend to prefer the unwashed flakes and, for reasons of cost, handle the wash process themselves“ says Mr Baghdadi. By contrast, the lion’s share of the hot-washed flakes is exported to Europe where it undergoes processing in countries such as, for example, the UK, France or the Netherlands. “Demand for good quality PET flakes is very high in these countries and these markets are becoming more and more important for us. However, we still produce a proportion of unwashed flakes to meet Asian requirements”. Are these exports financially viable? “In Tunisia“, Mr Bagh- dadi goes on, “there were historically no taxes on exports in the recycling sector. This year, for the first time, a compara- tively low tax rate of 10% has been levied on this sector, but it applies only to newly established companies”. Green Line does have two local customers who process the material fur- ther to make PET straps, but this accounts for scarcely 2,000 tonnes of material per year. The use of PET flakes is still a relatively new idea and, because of a Tunisian ban on its use in food products, could only be considered within the extru- sion sector for non-food products. The company’s current international customers use the material chiefly for the manu- facture of sheets. Mr Baghdadi, with an eye to the future, is, however, already sounding out companies that are displaying an interest in processing the flakes for the manufacture of preforms. Is there much competition in the sector? “It is vital for us not to get involved in any rivalry with other recycling companies. We prefer instead to build networks. For example, we require PET bottles in sufficient quantities to ensure that the hot wash process is profitable. For their part, recycling col- lection companies want to sell their material. So there is the potential, once our needs have been met, to develop mean- ingful partnerships which can benefit everyone. A much bigger problem in the sector is the booming black market. There are companies that recycle without a permit, who are therefore operating outside the law, with a lower cost base. To cap it all, they pay no taxes. It means that, on average, we are immedi- ately 30% worse off.” There has been a significant reduction in state controls on illegal transactions of this kind, Mr Baghdadi adds, particu- larly since the revolution at the beginning of 2011. Looking to the future, Green Line is currently exploring the possibility of setting up a parallel company with a UK partner to manufac- ture PET sheets using recycled material. “This is a sensible idea and we are, at this moment, busy working on the details together“. www.greenline.com.tn