EDITOUR PETplanet Insider Vol. 22 No. 10/21 www.petpla.net 12 Tour Sponsors: Kick off European Road Show 2021 Part 2 In the run-up to our European Road Show, we asked the 2nd group of our sponsors and experts from the whole PET value chain about topics that are currently relevant: 1) PETplanet’s latest Roadshow takes a critical look at the European market, which is picking up steam this year after pandemic-related slumps. How has the pandemic affected your business and what are your expectations for the coming months? 2) The European PET bottle market is on the move - not least due to the potential impact of various EU directives. Which of these are particularly relevant for your company and how are you placed to meet them? 3) What future challenges do you see for the PET industry? Mr Carsten Lurz, Vice President Sales, Service & Marketing at MHT 1) The pandemic defi nitively affected our business due to the fact that our customers faced a high degree of planning uncertainty. In this t ime, we received a g r owi ng numbe r o f requests regarding spare parts and overhauling of moulds. Moreover, travel limitations, home office r egu l a t i ons and l ock downs all over the world had a crucial infl uence on the way of interaction with our business partners as well. Nevertheless, the year 2020 was an acceptable year in terms of sales fi gures under the given circumstances. 2) The implementat ion of the EU approved tethered caps directive will change our business as a mould manufacturer. We expect an up-coming high demand of new preform designs including the thread area. With a recent ly instal led ful ly automated manufacturing line for neck-rings in our factory, we are well prepared for this new directive by a drastically increased output capacity. The close and strong cooperation with our parent company Krones in PET preform-/bottle-design enables us to provide our customers with an excellent support on this fi eld. 3) The on-going plastic bashing will redefi ne the questions and discussions around the topic PET bottle and the use of recycled PET in the next few years. As part of Krones PET recycling circle, we act with social responsibility. Accordingly, to optimise the preform and bottle weight in order to reduce the PET consumption will be in our focus. Moreover, we will strive to offer our customers digitalisation service solutions as this is an essential tool for the future. In conclusion, I´m convinced that the PET bottle will not lose its importance for the beverage industry, but light-weighting and recycling will become more mandatory. www.mht-ag.com Mr Dario Previero, General Manager at Previero N. Srl - Sorema 1) During the pandemic, we had to follow all the safety procedures in order to safeguard the health of our workers. Nevertheless, our industry got the permission to continue its activity and that enabled us to never stop providing services for our customers and, in the meantime, to pursue the negotiations for new projects. Since the demand for recycled polymers is always very strong, the medium-long term prospects for this industry are positive, especially for companies like us that produce and sell recycling plants. 2) For the PET bottles sector, the most important EU directive is the one concerning the single-use plastics which has placed very specifi c objectives for the amount of both the bottles to be collected and the rPET content to use in the production of new bottles. 3) To achieve the goals imposed by the new directives on the circular economy, the future challenges affect all the industrial chain. The fi rst challenge is to improve the communication between the parties involved so that a better design for recycling can be obtained and the volumes of collected material, which are not always suffi cient to meet the EU criteria, can be increased (on average, of course, some European countries have already reached these targets). The second challenge will be a technological one. As a matter of fact, it should be important to reach a high level of technology in all the recycling chain, in order to be able to produce recycled polymers with the requested quality and quantity. www.previero.it
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