PETpla.net Insider 03 / 2021

PET news 6 NEWS PETplanet Insider Vol. 22 No. 03/21 www.petpla.net Australia’s largest PET recycling plant under construction Construction is underway on a world-class recycling facil- ity in Albury-Wodonga that will see the equivalent of around 1 billion PET plastic bottles recycled each year. Environment Minister and Federal Member for Farrer, the Hon. Sussan Ley MP, marked the official start of construction by turning the first turf on-site at the project, which is being delivered in a joint venture between Asahi Beverages, Pact Group Hold- ings Ltd and Cleanaway Waste Management Ltd. The $45 million plant in the Nexus Precinct, 10 km out- side the Albury CBD in NSW, is set to be fully operational by October, two months earlier than expected owing to Albury Council approving the project ahead of schedule. The facility will trade as Circular Plastics Australia PET. Excavation of the site has already started, sheds to house more than a dozen diggers have been erected and dozens of jobs will be created as construction ramps up in coming weeks. The raw plastic material that the new plant will recycle each year is equivalent to 1 billion 600ml PET plastic bottles and will be used to produce more than 20,000 t of new recycled PET bottles and food packaging, making it the largest end-to-end rPET plant in Australia. It will increase the amount of locally sourced and recycled PET produced in Australia by two thirds – from around 30,000 t currently to over 50,000 t/a according to Pact Group. The plant will also reduce Australia’s reliance on virgin plastic and the amount of recycled plastic Australia imports. The project was made possible with the assistance of almost $5 million from the Environmental Trust as part of the NSW Government’s Waste Less, Recycle More initiative funded from the waste levy, with the support of the Depart- ment of Regional NSW and the Australian Government’s Recycling Modernisation Fund. www.asahi.com.au Drinktec postponed until September 2022 The Drinktec advisory board and Messe München have taken a joint decision to postpone the world’s leading trade fair for the beverage and liquid food industry until the autumn of 2022. The new dates are September 12-16, 2022. This action was prompted by the international nature of the Drinktec event. The decision could not be delayed given that industrial goods trade fairs involve extensive planning and complex high-tech construction work. Despite the coronavirus crisis, Drinktec is registering high demand for floorspace from customers both in Germany and abroad. Three quarters of the available exhibition floorspace has already been booked. Dr Reinhard Pfeiffer, Deputy Chair- man of the Board of Messe München says: “Until recently, we assumed that the pandemic situation would improve, making international travel possible. The latest developments have quashed these expectations. Two thirds of all Drinktec visitors come from abroad. Of these, half come from other continents. This means we cannot deliver the benefits of a leading global trade fair this year.” The global beverage industry meets in Munich only once every four years. “Companies synchronise their innovative developments in line with this cycle, which is why we had to find timely dates in the trade fair calendar. Cancelling alto- gether and leaving an eight-year gap in between trade fairs would have been unacceptable for the industry,” explains Dr Pfeiffer. Volker Kronseder, Chairman of the Drinktec advisory board, as well as Drinktec’s conceptual sponsor, the VDMA (German Mechanical Engineering Industry Association) sup- port the decision. Preparations and plans currently underway for Drinktec 2021 and the integrated oils+fats event will now be seamlessly transferred to the new 2022 dates. www.drinktec.com CarbonLite Holdings files for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code CarbonLite Holdings LLC, recycler of plastic beverage bottles, announced that it has filed a voluntary petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (the “Bankruptcy Court”). The filing pertains to all three of Car- bonLite’s facilities, in California, Texas and Pennsylvania, as well as to its California subsidiary, PinnPack Packaging. Production at all these facilities will continue as usual without interruption, as will payment of all employees. Layoffs are not under consideration. There will be no stoppage of supply to CarbonLite’s customers during the reorganisation period. Pressures directly related to the coronavirus pandemic con- tributed to CarbonLite’s decision to reorganise. This included temporary production slow-downs caused by employee ill- ness, the low price of virgin plastic relative to rPET, and a nine-month delay in the grand opening of the company’s new Pennsylvania facility caused by travel restrictions that held up equipment commissioning by European manufacturers. CarbonLite has also incurred heavy capital expenditures for the recent expansion of its Dallas facility and construction of its state-of-the-art, 270,000 square-foot plant in Reading, Pennsylvania, which launched limited production in October 2020. This plant is outfitted with advanced robotic systems and is the largest standalone bottle-to-bottle recycling facility in the world. Its grand opening is planned for this spring. The company’s plans includes customer contract renegotiations to ensure CarbonLite’s solid financial footing. www.carbonliterecycling.com