PETpla.net Insider 03 / 2019

BOTTLING / FILLING PET planet Insider Vol. 20 No. 03/19 www.petpla.net 35 Almost everyone in the bottle busi- ness told them that a 100% rPET bottle was impossible, but Jamie and his team went ahead anyway and succeeded. “In 2008-2009 Amut and Starlinger could produce food grade recycled plastic on their lines. We decided to build our own recycling plant in Shelburne, Ontario. We installed Amut sortation equipment and 2 Starlinger purification unit lines, a Star 1 reco-Star PET 165 iV+ and Star 2 recoStar PET 165 HC iV+. From the blue box from Ontario (the Provinces’ recycling system) only 16% was PET, the rest was other plastics. We buy 85% of the PET plastics collected in the blue box in Ontario, and that was about right. We have created a steady demand for material, and this was important because previously it was not possible as waste plastic was shipped to China whenever domestic demand was low. With our own recycling plant we now have a total closed loop business.” Ice River Spring gave their con- sumers a real option: bottled water produced with a very low carbon foot- print. “It is much more environmentally friendly because all bottles in every location in Canada are 100% rPET, from half litre and also the bigger 15 l bottle; we ship our rPET to all our plants in western Canada. In the US not yet every one of our partners is working 100%, but we are working on converting them. For private label pro- ducers, they now have the opportunity to advertise 100% rPET bottles and that is the best advertising.” “We do two different colours for the 100% rPET bottles, blue for most of our private label customers, and the green, recovered from the green PET in the stream, we use for our own brand. Ice River is sold exclu- sively in Canada in a green bottle. At the moment we are having to buy more green flakes to meet consumer demand for our product.” Sandy sees further growth on the recycling plastics side: “More of our US customers are converted to use rPET, and we are going to need a bigger supply and this will mean adding another recycling plant elsewhere in North America. The challenge here is to put it in a region where you have access to a consist- ent supply of material!” Sandy had one final comment to add: our main driver is to be the trusted provider of healthy beverages through innovative and responsible methods. We want to redefine bottled water and give consumers a sustainable option they can feel good about. We believe that closed loop business models will encourage other manufacturers and brand owners to do the same. www.iceriversprings.com for Pharma Applications 100% inline Inspection for PET, HDPE, LDPE, etc. for complex Shapes B O T T L E I N S P E C T I O N One of the Husky machines: A Hypet 400, 96 cavity