PETpla.net Insider 04 / 2019

MATERIALS / RECYCLING PET planet Insider Vol. 20 No. 04/19 www.petpla.net 14 The brand new Vacunite bottle-to-bottle recycling process for food contact grade rPET pellets Combining Vacuum and Nitrogen atmosphere is the key Erema is a leader in new technologies that shake up the recycling industry and is always new setting standards. With its new Vacunite system, a combination of the Basic Vacurema series, together with patented vacuum-supported nitrogen Solid State Polycondensation (SSP) by Polymetrix, Christoph Wöss, Business Development Manager for Bottle Applications at the Erema Group demonstrates his company’s role as an innovation pioneer. Recycling Special Almost in passing and with Aus- trian modesty, Christoph tells us that the Erema Group’s business is going extremely well and will achieve sales of € 180m by spring 2019. “Our growth will be driven by the com- mitments given by numerous brand owners. We are pulling out all the stops and are excited by the chal- lenge!” he explains. The first three Vacunite systems have already been sold to France, Germany and India. A demonstration plant will be installed at Erema´s customer centre until the beginning of 2020. Never forget where you come from “In order to break new ground and develop innovative technologies, you must never forget where you come from. Our current Vacurema Basic, Advanced and Prime portfolio has been around for 20 years. In 1999, we achieved the FDA seal of approval for the first time with Basic, followed by Advanced in 2001 and Prime in 2006. A total of 225 systems have been sold, producing 1.6 million tonnes of food grade rPET worldwide”, says Christoph. Current contemplation Christoph keeps a close eye on the market. “One cubic metre of bale is becoming less and less good material. What is the reason for this? China´s plastic import ban and higher collection rates that are demanded by the EU and others, mean that every- thing possible can get into the bales. If you previously had 20% waste, the figure is now set at 25-35%: it varies from country to country. This means that I get a maximum of 700 kg of flakes from 1,000 kg of bale”. “In addition, Efsa stipulates that there should be a maximum of 5% non-food material in the flakes. There is also a wide range of colours: Americans in particular are con- fronted with this challenge. Although it is possible to blend to a degree, if the material really is to be recycla- ble, for perfect bottle-to-bottle grade you need to have transparent and clear flakes. Sprite, for example, has recently changed its colour from green to clear.” “There are EPBP and APR guide- lines which should be observed: still some designers do not pay enough attention to recyclability of their prod- ucts. However, there are also positive developments in this area. There are already new bottles which have gone through a whole range of tests without any problems. I was very pleased about that”, said Christoph. In- and output quality Input quality gets worse. Output quality is measured, among other things, by the residual content of the limonene in the granulate which assesses how effective the decon- tamination process has been. “Here too, there has been a change to the guideline values. The previous figure of 29 parts per billion has recently been adjusted to 19 ppb – ours is currently 10 ppb. A clear trend can be seen here. These values are becom- ing increasingly difficult to achieve. The adjustments, of course, stem from the fact that brands now want to use more rGranulate which, as a result, has brought this value into the spotlight”. An additional guide- line that has to be adhered to is the so-called NIAS (Non-Intentionally Heike Fischer, PETplanet and Christoph Wöss, Erema, at the Petcore conference in Brussels