PETpla.net Insider 10 / 2017

PREFORM PRODUCTION PET planet Insider Vol. 18 No. 10/17 www.petpla.net 21 Representatives from different subject areas of the beverage industry and well-known brands attended the three-day Open House held by Sipa and Erema. The participants saw a compelling live production perfor- mance of the first PET Inline Preform system. Sipa, a leading manufacturer of PET packaging solutions from Italy, and Erema, specialists in the manu- facturing of plastic recycling systems, have together developed a unique, flexible, direct processing solution to make food contact compliant inline preforms from PET flakes in a single step. One step forward to real the dream of a circular sustainable economy Teamwork always wins As announced in PETplanet Insider 9/2017 the open house event of Erema and Sipa was held on September 4 – 6, 2017 at the Sipa headquarters in Vittorio Veneto, Italy. The two companies invited their customers to demonstrate the direct processing of washed PET flakes to make food contact grade preforms live on the first PET Inline Preform system. This system will be in industrial operation next year. The pivotal product from Erema in the collaboration is Vacurema technol- ogy, which is combined with Sipa’s Xtreme preform production system. The pioneering system offers PET processors economic and ecologi- cal benefits: energy savings, lower logistics and process costs and higher profitability thanks to the direct link of the two systems eliminating all the waste of the complete process. Another unique selling proposition over conventional injection mould- ing is that lightweighting up to 8% is possible with the patented Xtreme preform design. “We previewed this technol- ogy at the Discovery Day 2016 and it is now ready for production. The PET Inline Preform system catches the spirit of the age and even goes one step further. There is increasing demand among customers for flexible and energy-saving processing pos- sibilities. With this system we sup- port them in remaining an innovative part of the ever developing plastics industry,” says Christoph Wöss, Busi- ness Development Manager for Bottle Applications at the Erema Group. Trials carried out previously on the PET Inline Preform system showed that the weight consistency, viscosity and colour values of the preforms – depending on flake quality – are on a par with those of virgin material. “We were keen to show the first PET Inline Preform System to interested Open House guests. This innovative technology makes real the dream of a circular sustainable econ- omy with results exceeding our most optimistic expectations at the begin- ning of the project. The rPET preforms have quality properties and perfor- mances comparable to the injection moulded preforms made in virgin resin. We are delighted about the strong interest and so many enthu- siastic participants,” explains Enrico Gribaudo, General Manager of Sipa. www.sipa.com www.erema.com Open House of Sipa and Erema (f.l.t.r.): Enrico Gribaudo, General Manager of Sipa, Anna Horecica Csiki, Product Manager PET Systems at Sipa, and Christoph Wöss, Business Development Manager at Erema Group. The PET Inline Preform system enables the flexible direct processing of PET flakes to make food contact compliant inline preforms in just one processing step. The new PET Inline Preform system combines the efficiency benefits of the proven Vacurema technology from Erema with the innovative Xtreme pre- form production system of Sipa.