PETnews 8 NEWS PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 03/22 www.petpla.net PETINAR Evergreen to install AI-enabled sorting robotics in third recycling, rPET manufacturing plant Evergreen, one of North America’s three largest producers of food grade rPET, has announced that it will be installing artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled bottle sorting robotics at its Albany, New York plastics recycling and rPET manufacturing facility. When the installation is completed in mid 2022, Evergreen will have deployed 15 high-speed, highly accurate robotic lines at its three of its United States locations. Supplying the robotics sorting lines to Albany is AMP Robotics Corp., a pioneer in AI robotics and infrastructure for the waste industry. AMP installed the AI-enabled robotic sorting lines in Evergreen Clyde in April 2021 and Evergreen Riverside in August 2021. Evergreen President and CEO Omar Abuaita says replacing previously manual sorting processes with high-tech robotics is part of a strategic vision to transform not just his company, but the overall plastics recycling industry. “With demand for recycled PET at the highest levels in history, we simply can’t rely on outdated ways of doing business. Evergreen is playing for keeps. Automating our sorting lines allows us to support ever larger PET recycling streams, provide the millions of pounds of food grade rPET our customers have committed to purchasing, and achieve a safer, more efficient work environments for our team.” Last month Abuaita revealed that Evergreen, a portfolio company of private equity firm the Sterling Group, has invested more than $ 200 million in modernisation, capacity expansion, and acquisitions over the last 12 month. The AMP robotics are part of that investment. Evergreen currently recycles more than 11.6 billion postconsumer PET bottles a year, up from 2 billion in 2021. General Manager Greg Johnson says the AI-enabled sorting lines are an absolute necessity to increase both the speed and accuracy of sorting the monumental volume of bottles Evergreen processes. www.evergreentogether.com Carbios to build in France a manufacturing plant for fully bio-recycled PET in partnership with Indorama Ventures After having successfully started-up its demonstration plant in Clermont-Ferrand, Carbios is now moving one step further towards the industrialisation and commercialisation by partnering with Indorama Ventures. The goal is to build and operate in France the world’s first industrial-scale enzymatic PET bio-recycling plant, with a processing capacity estimated at ca. 50,000 t of post-consumer PET waste per year, equivalent to 2 billion PET bottles or 2.5 billion PET trays. After the positive results of Indorama Ventures’ initial analysis on the technical soundness of Carbios’ technology over the past several months, both parties agreed to complete a due diligence process. A feasibility study will be conducted for the industrialisation of Carbios’ technology on Indorama Ventures’ French production site. Subject to the successful completion of these technical and economical evaluations, Indorama Ventures would co-invest in the project. With its world-first enzyme-based biological process, Carbios’ technology, named C-Zyme, converts PET into its core monomers, which can then be used to manufacture 100% recycled and infinitely recyclable PET. This manufacturing plant is claimed to combine Carbios’ science and technology with Indorama Ventures’ world-class manufacturing capabilities. This collaboration will meet the growing needs of both demanding consumers and large consumer goods companies including Carbios’ partners and shareholders (L’Oréal, Michelin, L’Occitane, Nestlé Waters, PepsiCo, Suntory Beverage & Food Europe) for more sustainable packaging. www.carbios.com www.indoramaventures.com On 24 March 2022 at 2 p.m. PETplanet Insider will host another PETinar on the topic of Tethered Caps! Learn from Sascha Baumanns, Director of Sales at Intravis about the possibilities of inspecting tethered caps. Mark Smith, Senior Vice President at Universal Closure and Michael Fink, CEO of z-Moulds will report on their joint projects and present their moulding concepts and systems. All three companies are well established in the market and will be available to answer your questions! PETplanet’s Editor-at-large Ruari McCallion will guide through the PETinar. Register now: https://petpla.net/category/petinars
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