PETpla.net Insider 01+02 / 2016

imprint EDITORIAL PUBLISHER Alexander Büchler, Managing Director HEAD OFFICE heidelberg business media GmbH Bunsenstr. 14 69115 Heidelberg, Germany phone: +49 6221-65108-0 fax: +49 6221-65108-28 [email protected] EDITORIAL Kay Barton Doris Fischer Heike Fischer Gabriele Kosmehl Michael Maruschke Ruari McCallion Waldemar Schmitke Wolfgang von Schröter Anthony Withers MEDIA CONSULTANTS Martina Hirschmann [email protected] Johann Lange-Brock [email protected] phone: +49 6221-65108-0 fax: +49 6221-65108-28 FRANCE, ITALY, UK Elisabeth Maria Köpke phone: +49 6201-878925 fax: +49 6201-878926 [email protected] LAYOUT AND PREPRESS EXPRIM Werbeagentur Matthias Gaumann | www.exprim.de READER SERVICES Till Kretner [email protected] PRINT Chroma Druck & Verlag GmbH Werkstr. 25 67354 Römerberg Germany WWW www.hbmedia.net | w ww.petpla.net PETplanet insider ISSN 1438-9459 is published 10 times a year. This publication is sent to qualified subscribers (1-year subscription 149 EUR, 2-year subscription 289 EUR, Young professionals’ sub- scription 99 EUR. Magazines will be dispatched to you by airmail). Not to be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. Note: The fact that product names may not be identified as trademarks is not an indication that such names are not registered trademarks. 3 PET planet insider Vol. 17 No. 01+02/16 www.petpla.net Dear friends of PETplanet insider, We are starting this year with a moderated knowledge management system. What is that? You may well be asking? Our aim is to try and show the PET world in a joined-up way. We’ll start at the PETcore Conference in Brussels on February 23, 2016, which focuses on PET recycling. Erema and Starlinger have already announced they will co-operate. We would like to invite you too – dear Reader – to join us. Design a tool to gather up-to-date information about the PET industry, its technologies, processes, applications, companies, events, all along the PET value chain. Our target is to offer organisations and suppliers a unique way to present themselves on an independent platform and for producers to find comprehensive information on their relevant topics. As an independent source of information the database is inviting all partners of the PET value chain to create the contents. In order to guarantee high quality of content, Doris Fischer, of the PETplanet editorial team, will moderate the content. One question that immediately springs to mind is this: what exactly do all these recycling terms actually mean? We are all familiar with PET recycling and down-cycling but where does PET bottle upcycling fit in? Our back story from Costa Rica may supply the answer. Donald Thomson the initiator and brains behind the scheme calls the idea REAP - Recover, Enrich, Appreciate and Prosper. This somewhat abstract concept became reality in the “bottle to tile” project. Before the bottles became a down-cycle product, or even worse, dumped in a landfill site with all the harmful environmental consequences, the bottles were enriched by transforming them into high quality tiles which were then used to improve housing for poor people. A win-win situation for recyclers, the environment and for people. The waste stream of the PET bottle has thus become the value stream for the roof tile. Thomson draws an infinity loop to outline the interdependence of input and output: “two intersecting cycles, synergistically co-nurturing a balanced and zero waste growth between themselves.” Yours Alexander Büchler