PETpla.net Insider 06 / 2021

43 PRODUCTS PETplanet Insider Vol. 22 No. 06/21 www.petpla.net PET products Colour change feature for Altanium hot runner temperature controllers Husky Injection Molding Systems, Ltd., a leading industrial technology provider to the plastics processing community, announced its collaboration with Chem-Trend on a system solution that creates repeatability during the critical colour change process to offer a fast, accu- rate, and optimised approach for operators. The team devised a new guided procedure made easily accessible to operators within the Husky Altanium Mold Controller operator interface. The instructions outline a simple, yet effective approach to setting up and performing the colour change process explicitly for moulds with hot runner systems. The joint approach is based on the process for using Chem-Trend’s Ultra Purge brand of purge compounds, which is designed specifically to reduce colour-change time and carbon formation in hot runner systems. Together, Chem-Trend and Husky aim to enhance their customers’ operational margins by increasing equipment and labour uptime. Trial results showed up to an 85% reduction in scrap and an 80% increase in mould cleaning efficiency when following the recom- mended process. Features of the new package include step by step instructions to set colour change parameters; a booster to ensure a faster colour change time; digital cycle count input, black speck removal mode and in-built memory for easy recall of settings. www.husky.co www.chemtrend.com Mineral water company Donat replaced its PET and glass packaging with 100% rPET bottles In cooperation with Alpla, the Slovenian min- eral water company Donat has replaced its PET and glass packaging entirely with 100% rPET bottles. With this step, the company intends to cut its carbon emissions by up to 90%. Under the motto of ‘green to green’, Alpla initiated the use of 100% green rPET bottles to replace the 100% virgin-material PET and glass bottles conventionally used by the min- eral water company Donat. The company’s decision to discontinue the use of virgin PET bottles and reusable glass packaging is resulting in an annual saving of around one million litres of drinking water and some 98,000KWh of electricity; 12,000kg of cleaning product can be eliminated in this way too. This cuts its carbon emissions by up to 90%, the company calculated. As the Slovenian market is dominated by green PET bottles, it made sense for Alpla to choose a ‘green to green’ approach. Green bottles are collected in Slovenia and recycled at the Alpla recycling plant in Wöllersdorf, Austria, and then go back onto supermarket shelves as new rPET mineral water bottles. “We have been involved in closed-loop recycling in Slovenia since 2014 and we turn 4,000-5,000 t of Slovenian PET bottles into rPET at PET Recycling Team in Wöllersdorf. When the opportunity arose for us to use green rPET for the Donat bottles, we seized it and began to collect and separate these bottles, which would normally end up in non-food recycling. The result is a sustainable recycling project with a long-term partnership and a win-win situation for both companies,” says Primoz Agrez, Multi-Country Manager, Balkan/Adria, at Alpla. Donat’s total volume amounts to 35 million bottles a year, 30% of which are 0.5l bottles and 70% 1l bottles. Around 1,300t of green bottles have to be collected a year in order to meet all of Donat’s rPET bottle needs. www.alpla.com The right tools and expertise to help with your rPET goals! Agr is uniquely positioned to support your venture into rPET bottle manufacturing with a powerful combination of Process Control tools, Process Consultants, and decades of industry experience. AGRINTL.COM • +1.724.482.2163