PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2022

No.5 2022 www.petpla.net D 51178; ISSN: 1438-9452 30 . 05 . 22 PETplanet is read in more than 140 countries MAGAZ I NE FOR BOT T L E R S AND BOT T L E - MAK E R S IN THE AMER ICAS, AS IA, EUROPE AND AL L AROUND THE PLANET MARKETsurvey Suppliers of preform and SBM moulds Page 27 Page 10 Recycling Page 12

ClipAside, drink, love! Tethered ClipAside closure wins high acceptance Contact us and arrange your line trials now! www.bericap.com PET 38 PET 29/25 PCO 1881 PET 33 PET 26 PET 26 GME 30.40 A recent consumer real-life “diary study” conducted in France found a high level of acceptance among consumers for the innovative new closure. After just one or two experiences, even the youngest and oldest users could handle the smart closure without difficulty – often with one hand. What’s more, many praised the eco-friendly nature of the cap, which remains on the bottle neck and avoids creating additional plastic waste. Best of all for you, this premium product can be integrated into most lines and any popular bottle neck format without major modification of your production equipment.

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imprint EDITORIAL PUBLISHER Alexander Büchler, Managing Director HEAD OFFICE heidelberg business media GmbH Hubweg 15 74939 Zuzenhausen, Germany phone: +49 6221-65108-0 fax: +49 6221-65108-28 info@petpla.net EDITORIAL Kay Barton Heike Fischer Gabriele Kosmehl Michael Maruschke Ruari McCallion Anthony Withers WikiPETia. info petplanet@petpla.net MEDIA CONSULTANTS Martina Hirschmann hirschmann@petpla.net Johann Lange-Brock lange-brock@petpla.net phone: +49 6221-65108-0 fax: +49 6221-65108-28 LAYOUT AND PREPRESS EXPRIM Werbeagentur | exprim.de Matthias Gaumann READER SERVICES Till Kretner reader@petpla.net PRINT Chroma Druck Eine Unternehmung der Limberg-Druck GmbH Danziger Platz 6 67059 Ludwigshafen, Germany WWW www.hbmedia.net | www.petpla.net PETplanet Insider ISSN 1438-9459 is published 10 times a year. This publication is sent to qualified subscribers (1-year subscription 149 EUR, 2-year subscription 289 EUR, Young professionals’ subscription 99 EUR. Magazines will be dispatched to you by airmail). Not to be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. Note: The fact that product names may not be identified as trademarks is not an indication that such names are not registered trademarks. 3 PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 05/22 www.petpla.net Dear readers, The PET bottle recycling rate in the USA has been languishing below 30% for years. The reasons are complex and have already been questioned several times at this point. Now, from Texas, comes a proposal from a completely different direction. The idea, from the University of Texas in Austin, is to depolymerise PET in just 24 hours using enzymes and then repolymerise it again later. “The possibilities are endless across industries to leverage this leading-edge recycling process,” said Hal Alper, Professor in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering at UT Austin. “Beyond the obvious waste management industry, this also provides corporations from every sector the opportunity to take a lead in recycling their products. Through these more sustainable enzyme approaches, we can begin to envision a true circular plastics economy.” Research into enzymes for plastic recycling has been going on for over 15 years, but never at this speed of just 24 hours. For mixed PET fractions, this is perhaps a viable option so that one do not have to sort them according to type. So in the study, 51 different post-consumer plastic containers, five different polyester fibres and fabrics and water bottles all made from PET were examined. Researchers at the Cockrell School of Engineering and College of Natural Sciences used a machine learning model to generate novel mutations to a natural enzyme called PETase that allows bacteria to degrade PET plastics. The model predicts which mutations in these enzymes would accomplish the goal of quickly depolymerising postconsumer waste plastic at low temperatures. Despite all the enthusiasm for these fast enzymes, we must not lose sight of the fact that post-consumer PET waste still has to be collected, even in the USA... For the more down-to-earth amongst our readers, you will find many substantive articles about bottle recycling in this issue. Yours sincerely, Alexander Büchler

PETcontents 4 PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 05/22 www.petpla.net 05/2022 Page 47 EDITOUR 10 Strong growth in cosmetics, health care and pharmaceutical products - Machine builder Nissei ASB during and post pandemic MATERIALS / RECYCLING 12 How circular is PET? - A report shows how far PET, the most circular of all plastics, is from real circularity 16 Do you know the CO2 impact of your PET bottle? - Plastics seperation of householde plastics waste on particular level via magnetism 18 Team work in the plastics value chain - New extended producer responsibility (EPR) 19 Expanding recycling capabilities 20 Monitoring rPET preforms - Inline inspection also for colour deviation 22 Inspecting bottles with increased levels of rPET 24 It’s all in the mix - rPET preform production, flakes and granules in one hopper MARKET SURVEY 27 Suppliers of preform & SBM moulds PREFORM PRODUCTION 30 Preforms for the Indian market - Recent developments in PET preforms and bottles BOTTLE MAKING 32 Flexible and fancy - Sipa ECS SP one-stage system boosts Şimşek Plastik’s production 34 PET bottles production in Uruguay - Looking for a suitable SBM machine BOTTLING / FILLING 36 More flexibility and future viability - KHS develops modular PET filler platform 40 From hotels and restaurants to retail penetration - A water brand makes it big CAPS AND CLOSURES 42 Consumer survey on tethered cap - Bericap’s ClipAside solution BUYER’S GUIDE 48 Get listed! INSIDE TRACK 3 Editorial 4 Contents 6 News 44 On site 46 Products 54 PET bottles for home + personal care & PET bottles for beverage + liquid food Page 32 Page 10 RECYCLING

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PETnews 6 NEWS PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 05/22 www.petpla.net Europe’s non-alcoholic beverage industry calls for mechanisms to accelerate circular economy Europe’s non-alcoholic beverage industry, represented by the European Fruit Juice Association (AIJN), Natural Mineral Waters Europe (NMWE) and Unesda Soft Drinks Europe, together with leading NGOs, including Changing Markets Foundation and Zero Waste Europe, are calling on EU decisionmakers to create the right enabl ing policy framework to help accelerate the transition to a circular economy in Europe. These organisations underline the need to ensure resource-efficient waste management systems to enable closed-loop recycling. They also call for a “priority access”, or a similar mechanism that guarantees a “right of first refusal” to beverage producers to facilitate their fair access to the food-grade recycled materials coming from the products they placed on the market and which were successfully collected. The EU Circular Economy Action Plan has the ambition of accelerating the transition to a circular economy. This will require significant changes in the way recycled materials are collected, reused, recycled and incorporated, the statement says. Achieving fully closed and resource-efficient waste management systems for all materials should be the primary objective. The more closed-loop a system is, the more resource efficient it will be by delivering quality recycled materials which can be re-used multiple times for the same application. Therefore, for each sector, the ultimate goal should be to achieve closed-loop recycling, the organisations state and are confident that this can be achieved with the right enabling policy framework. The organisations suggest that the main policy conditions that should be created are: mandatory minimum requirements for Deposit Refund Schemes (DRS) to facilitate the roll-out of efficient waste collection schemes and the achievement of the EU 90% separate collection target; a mechanism that grants beverage producers fair and necessary access to the recycled materials deriving from the beverage containers they put on the market and which were successfully collected. This way, these materials can be used again as recycled content for new beverage packaging. This legal mechanism to guarantee a ‘’right of first refusal’’ to beverage producers will enable them to comply with the mandatory EU targets for the incorporation of rPET and ideally meet their more ambitious voluntary pledges (e.g. Unesda’s Circular Packaging Vision of achieving 50% rPET in 2025 and 100% in 2030 and NMWE’s commitments to achieving 50% rPET by 2030) towards circular packaging. a harmonised definition of high-quality recycling and, based on this definition, a ranking of recyclability classes. In such ranking, the highest position (priority) should be attributed to packaging that does not pose any recyclability issues and the recycled material can feed a closed-loop scheme and allow further recyclability of the same quality (for example, food-contact) when reaching their end-of-life. Nicholas Hodac, Director General of Unesda Soft Drinks Europe, adds: “Recent reports have illustrated that postconsumer recycled PET from beverage bottles is increasingly used by non-food sectors (textiles, automotive, etc.) to boost their environmental sustainability credentials. […] ‘Breaking the loop’ (a loss from the circular bottle stream) goes against the very principle of circularity. In addition, it also creates an unfair situation because food and drink producers are obliged to comply with strict EU health and safety requirements for food contact materials.’’ A priority of upcoming EU legislation should be, according to the organisations, to look beyond beverage containers and enable the creation of closed loops for all products and packaging applications. Joan Marc Simon, Executive Director of Zero Waste Europe, says: “It is time to raise EU ambitions and define highquality recycling. Introducing such a definition in the EU legislation will incentivise investments in recycling infrastructure and foster resource efficiency across the whole production of products and packaging materials.’’ www.unesda.eu New figures for installed plastics recycling capacities reveal a 13% growth The total installed plastics recycling capacity in 2020 in EU27+3 grew by 1.1 mt compared to the previous year. The new figures show that the plastics recycling industry remains resilient while continuing its path towards making plastics genuinely circular. The growth in the sector, despite the difficulties brought on by the pandemic, was possible thanks to the booming demand driven, among others, by the new legislative targets. The dataset shows that PET, flexible PO and rigid HDPE & PP retain the biggest share of the overall plastics recycling capacity, representing nearly 80%. Moreover, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK and France have the highest capacities for plastic waste recycling. Rigid HDPE & PP registered the highest increase in recycling capacities (a rate of over 20%), while for flexible PO it grew by roughly 10%. Fast-paced technological developments in collection, sorting and recycling were among the factors that facilitated these developments. With €7.7 billion in turnover and a total of 9.6 million tonnes of installed recycling capacity, European recyclers are an essential part of the puzzle in addressing plastic waste and play a significant role in contributing towards a carbon-neutral Europe. Comprehensive legislative support would unlock additional collection and high-quality sorting tonnages while incentivising investments in recycling technologies & infrastructures leading to a tripling of plastics recycling capacities by 2030. www.plasticsrecyclers.eu

7 NEWS PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 05/22 www.petpla.net PELabellers.com | Simpl-Cut.com Simpl-Cut™ introduces the cutting-edge next generation of automatic labelers. Completely innovative cutting system and gluing concept that revolutionize the traditional operating principle of the Roll-fed world. Ingenious Cutting System change blade in 10’’ without adjustment Revolutionary Gluing glue roller before label cutting Single Drum for three operations: gluing, cutting, label application Total Flexibility 3, 4, 5 and even 6 different division drums on the same station All-In-One Roll-fed cold glue and linerless pre-glued technology What’s on the line? The Simple Revolution Roll-fed Labelling will never be the same.

8 NEWS PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 05/22 www.petpla.net Plastics Industry Association announces top leadership appointments The Plastics Industry Association Board of Directors appointed Matt Seaholm to the position of Chief Executive Officer and Glenn Anderson to the position of Chief Operating Officer. Matt Seaholm has served as Plastics’ Vice President of Government Affairs for the past two years and prior to that was the Executive Director of the American Recyclable Plastic Bag Alliance at Plastics. Before joining the association, Matt was Vice-President of Public Affairs at Edelman. He is a veteran of political and policy campaigns, having worked on everything from local ordinance fights to state-wide political campaigns to national issue advocacy initiatives. He has been a public voice on behalf of the plastics industry for more than five years, testifying before more than thirty legislative bodies and being interviewed by more than one hundred media outlets. Glenn Anderson is currently the Vice President, Member Engagement for Plastics and has been in that role since April of 2020. Glenn has been an industry leader for nearly 40 years. Prior to joining Plastics, Glenn worked for member company and NPE exhibitor, Milacron LLC (now a division of Hillenbrand) for over 30 years. During his time at Milacron, Glenn held numerous roles and responsibilities including Vice-President & General Manager for both their injection & extrusion businesses for the America’s and most recently, as Senior Vice-President – Global/Strategic Accounts working with key global customers for all Milacron branded companies including Mold Masters and DME. www.plasticsindustry.org Erema Group: Growing revenues, plant sizes and production capacities The Erema Group, which comprises Erema Group GmbH and its subsidiaries Erema, Pure Loop, Umac, 3S, Keycycle and Plasmac, closed the 2021/22 financial year with a 17 per cent increase in revenue. Consolidated Group revenue amounted to EUR 295 million, and the number of employees increased to over 840. The Erema Group remains on course for continued growth. A total of 220 extruders manufactured in Ansfelden were supplied to customers all over the world. If one includes individual components and modules such as filter systems and ReFresher anti-odour technology in that figure, the total was around 320. Then there are another 53 extruders from Plasmac, the Italian subsidiary. The recycled pellet production capacity of all extrusion systems de l i vered i n f i nanc i a l year 2021/22 adds up to around 1.34 million tonnes per year. A closer look at the post-consumer segment clear ly shows a t rend towards larger plants, both for PET recycling and for processing polyolefins. For example, the first Vacurema Basic 2628 T machine with an annual capacity of up to 40,000 t was recently commissioned at a customer’s site in Brazil. This plant features a ten-metre-long special geometry screw with a diameter of 280mm and a weight of 3.5 t. The screw was developed and manufactured by 3S, a subsidiary of Erema GmbH. Demand for prev i ous l y-owned machines at Umac also remained high during the past financial year. In addition to the general trend towards plastics recycling, the decisive factor here is that customers are more frequently opting for previously-owned systems available at short notice due to the tense situation on the procurement markets. At the same time, businesses that have so far had little contact with recycling are also becoming increasingly interested in this topic. Their need for feasibility studies, consulting and engineering services, project management and turnkey projects are now also very successfully catered for by Keycycle, an Erema Group company. www.erema-group.com F.l.t.r.: Matt Seaholm, CEO & Glenn Anderson, COO Herbold Meckesheim GmbH Your partner for plastics recycling www.herbold.com As a specialist for plastics recycling we are your contact for complex applications. We have the long lasting expertise in washing, separation and drying – to recycle new, used and contaminated plastic waste. Thanks to our modular technology, we are able to develop customized overall concepts or to optimize your already-existing plant. Herbold Hydrocyclone Ten times higher separation effect compared to a swim-sink tank for higher purity Higher washing effect due to additional intensive friction Continuous water cleaning circuit Compact design

9 NEWS PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 05/22 www.petpla.net Talk to our specialist team info@bmt-ni.com Making a positive impact on plastic Partnering for a sustainable future bmt-ni.com Netstal establishes subsidiary in the USA Netstal is strengthening its presence in the North American market with its new US subsidiary. Doug Haberman will lead Netstal Inc. as president. He will report to Renzo Davatz, CEO of Netstal, Member of the Executive Committee of the KraussMaffei Group and Board Director of the new company. Netstal Inc. is headquartered in Hebron, Kentucky. Netstal Inc. moved into its new headquarters at the beginning of March. The team will provide support to customers from the U.S. and Canada, and continue to expand North American business. The Netstal Inc. team currently consists of 24 employees. Doug Haberman brings 30 years of experience in the plastics industry. His previous positions include both machine and material suppliers. Between 1996 and 2007, he held various positions in injection moulding machine sales at KraussMaffei Corporation. Since 2007, Doug Haberman has held several leadership positions at Audia Group of Companies, a compounding and colour masterbatch company. Most recently, he managed Audia’s European business from Slovakia. For his new role as president of Netstal Inc, Doug Haberman is returning home to the United States. New facilities for sales, service and applications engineering The new North American headquarters in Hebron will serve as administrative hub for the United States and Canada. “Beyond warehousing our growing spare parts inventory, this location will also have a machine demonstration area and a separate space to refurbish machines in the future. Netstal’s field-based service, applications development, and sales team remains solely focused on helping our customers to fully realise the advantages of the Netstal technology”, emphasises Doug Haberman. www.netstal.com

EDITOUR PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 05/22 www.petpla.net 10 Machine builder Nissei ASB during and post pandemic Strong growth in cosmetics, health care and pharmaceutical products by Kay Barton March 25, 2022 We met: Mr Karel Keersmaekers-Michiels, Managing Director While many companies have experienced serious disruption during the past two years, Nissei ASB made further gains in sales, posting record revenues of JPY35,9 billion in the 2021 fiscal year which ended in September, with a 31.7% growth in sales from 2020 to 2022 despite restrictions imposed on pandemic-related commercial activities. Just over 600 machines and 1,400 moulds were sold during this period by the company which employs 2,093 staff worldwide. Tour Sponsors: Karel Keersmaekers-Michiels explains: “At the start of the pandemic, there was an urgent demand for disinfectants and cleaning products which, of course, required the necessary packaging machinery and moulds. We had made major investments in new factories in India and Japan during 2018-2019 which enabled us to manage the sudden demand for this as well. The trend continued for more than a year. At the same time, demand for cosmetic products dropped significantly due to various lockdowns and travel restrictions. But then, the situation changed once again. Following the saturation of the market by disinfectant and cleaning products, demand again fell markedly while global easing of restrictions greatly boosted areas such as standard and high-priced cosmetics. By the way, we only had a temporary shutdown of our plant in India in the spring of 2020 but were fully operational again by the autumn”. During the pandemic, Nissei ASB also continued to fine-tune its Zero Cooling technology, as well as processing quite a few orders for its high-performance PF36 machine used in the production of drinks bottles and launched in 2018. There were also developments in the area of environmentally-friendly packaging such as double-layer containers; lightweight, large-sized bag-in-box containers and lightweight reusable bottles. “On the manufacturing side we have optimised our global production system by enhancing our mould manufacturing capacity at our India plant and restructuring a flexible production system at the factories in Japan to respond to the increase in production and the spreading of risk. We will continue to invest for the future expansion aiming at increasing in-house production, shortening lead times and enhancing profitability”, explained Mr Keermaekers-Michiels. This year, he is expecting a yield of JPY30 billion due to disruption in supply chains and a weakening global economy caused by rising material and energy prices. The war in Ukraine is also likely to have an adverse impact on Nissei ASB’s operations, particularly in Europe. “We will probably sell around 500 machines and systems this year”, said Keersmaekers-Michiels. The best-selling line is the 4-station ASB series which comes in three different sizes and on which a range of containers made from various plastics can be produced. The basic customer structure is around 35% from hygiene products and cosmetics, 25% food, 20% pharmaceuticals and 10% each from drinks to household cleaners. But back to Europe. The market, Mr Keersmaekers-Michiels explains, is not only the most advanced in terms of plastic packaging but also a trendsetter in sustainability and contributes 20% to the company’s total sales. “In our strongest segment, cosmetics and personal care products, the design and functionality of the packaging plays an important role in both positioning and protecting the product as well as providing convenience to the consumer. Several global brands have their headquarters and R&D centres in Europe and their packaging developments have an impact on the rest of the world.” The importance of sustainable production is also a constant issue with customers. Recyclate is already being processed on a broad scale, with future European legislation expected to further increase the demand for rPET Managing Director Karel KeersmaekersMichiels

EDITOUR 11 PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 for example. “Of course, rPET is not the same as virgin PET and there are technical challenges such as colour consistency, batch to batch consistency, IV stability, crystallinity level, etc.“, said Mr Keersmaekers-Michiels, “but the processibility on our machines has been sufficiently proven, given the large number of projects with rPET that we have already realised. Besides rPET we also offer processing of PET flakes and we continue to test newly developed materials such as biodegradables. Our machines have been proven to be very flexible when it comes to processing different plastic materials.“ In order to prepare itself for the future, Nissei ASB GmbH will continue to invest in staff development, communication and adaptability to enable the company to respond effectively to situations such as the pandemic with a high level of resilience. We also wanted to know how the market for single-stage technologies is likely to develop in the future, to which Mr Keersmaekers-Michiels replied as follows: “Single stage machines are extremely versatile and suitable for the production of high-quality containers and hygienic container production as the machines produce containers starting from the raw material. This also makes the production process energy efficient because cooling, reheating, handling and transport of preforms as in the 2-step system are eliminated. The trend towards short chains makes these small and medium output machines very suitable for local production to avoid expensive and polluting transport costs. I believe that we will see a further transition from mass production to small-scale local production in the coming years and the single step machine is a perfect match for this.” www.nisseiasb.co.jp Nissei ASB’s Technical Centre in Düsseldorf

MATERIALS / RECYCLING PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 05/22 www.petpla.net 12 A report shows how far PET, the most circular of all plastics, is from real circularity How circular is PET? Research produced for Zero Waste Europe by sustainability consultancy Eunomia shows that most PET plastic recovered from bottles in Europe does not make its way back into new PET bottles. Significant improvements in PET design, collection and recycling will be needed to improve circularity, the study says. The “How circular is PET?” report presents a picture of the state of circularity of this material in bottles in Europe – including how much material from bottles is collected for recycling; how much of it is actually recycled; and how much of recycled PET is put into new bottles. Current circularity The majority of PET is not currently managed in a circular model since leakage from the circular system is high, with material lost at all stages of the PET lifecycle. As it is technically and economically more challenging to deliver manufacturing quality requirements from rPET than virgin PET, and as this is especially the case for closed loop applications, rPET can ‘cascade’ from one product stream to another, usually from higher quality to lower. Once cascaded, it is unlikely to return up the cascade and, in some cases, rPET may exit the circular recycling system through the cascade. What are the root causes of this problem? Ineffective collection systems leading to high losses of post-consumer PET. Lack of availability of recyclers means some collected material cannot be reprocessed. Contaminants from collection and sorting. Product design and material quality, including coloured PET and multimaterial applications as well as foodgrade standards for rPET. rPET economics, i.e., the market rate of rPET compared to vPET, which is dependent on many drivers including the demand by end markets. PET bottle stream Of the entire PET family, bottle recycling has the most developed technology and infrastructure. Across Europe, collection schemes for PET bottles vary. Some countries are achieving high recycling rates with beverage deposit refund schemes (DRS), while other countries and regions are achieving lower recycling rates with separate collection schemes. The report shows that PET bottles have a recycling rate of around 50% (calculated using the weight of PET material at the stage after wash and flake vs the weight of PET bottles (including lids and labels) placed on the market). rPET used in bottle manufacturing has high overall quality criteria and must be derived from bottles. It is estimated that bottles placed on the market (POM) only comprise an average of 17% rPET, with the remaining rPET downcycled into other, lower grade manufacturing applications and therefore considered a loss from the circular bottle stream. While bottles make up the largest share of PET packaging, PET is used in other PET applications, such as in fibres, single-use tray manufacturing, films, and strapping. There is no standardised collection and sorting of non-bottle PET applications in Europe. The lack of appropriate sorting and recycling technologies as well as the design of these applications makes them currently difficult to recycle. Although some tray and film recycling does happen on a small scale, the amount is negligible in the greater scheme of the PET packaging manufacturing scope currently. Therefore, only bottle recycling has been considered in the current scenario. Trays use approximately one third (31%) of the total rPET generated from bottle recycling. In total, PET packaging uses 74% of rPET derived from bottles. While this means that the rPET generated by bottles finds use in new packaging products, the lack of large-scale recycling for anything other than bottles means that it is eventually lost as leakage from the circularity of PET packaging. Approximately 14% of the global polyester market is recycled polyester, the majority of which is produced from PET bottles. Clear/light blue bottle material is typically most desirable for textile production, as this produces fibre with reduced discolouration. Although fibres may have a recycled content (rPET from bottles), there are no known current market scale recycling processes for post-consumer fibres. Therefore, as is similarly seen in other non-bottle PET applications, the RECYCLING

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MATERIALS / RECYCLING PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 05/22 www.petpla.net 14 mass of PET used in fibres will end up as leakage from the circular system. Upper limits to PET circularity in the future Upcoming policy is driving increased bottle collections, likely only achievable through the introduction of deposit return systems (DRS) for PET beverage bottles. The widescale introduction of DRS, coupled with improvements in bottle product design, is also likely to offer advantages in the quality of rPET derived from bottles. Petcycle, a German DRS closed loop circular system, demonstrates that continued circularity can be achieved with 55% rPET content of bottles (recycled content target for members for the past eight years). Recent laboratory test results indicate that bottles can be made from 75% recycled content in a closed loop circular model by adding 25% of vPET at each manufacturing stage, without any significant loss of bottle quality characteristics, other than a grey discolouration in the bottle appearance. Within the total European PET bottle market this means that bottles POM contain on average 17% rPET, which means only 17% will be carried over from the previous loop and the PCR content within the system is swiftly reduced. Taking anticipated policy changes, the Petcycle case study as well as the experiment results by other studies into account, we can see that the impact on the longevity of PCR content in each case is significant. A future scenario will likely see bottles being managed in a much more circular way than currently is the case. With a high PCR content (a maximum of 75% was used in an example in the study), a high amount of rPET flake is returned into bottles of the same colour, with reduced levels of cascading from bottles to lower value streams. Noticeable also is a significant reduction in loss from the bottle system, both in terms of waste and rPET cascading into other, lower grade PET applications. Due to lack of availability of rPET from clear and light blue bottles, in this best-case scenario only 61% instead of 75% recycled content in bottles is possible. Considering only the traditional mechanical recycling market there are two potential scenarios considered in more detail in this report which could increase the recycled content in bottles: A further improvement in collection rates (e.g., meeting higher collection rates in DRS schemes); and/or A move from coloured and opaque bottles to clear bottles (this would require a ca. 91% reduction in coloured and opaque bottles). To generate 75% recycled content purely with a further increase in the DRS collection rate alone is not possible, even when assuming that all current and future DRS systems would achieve the current collection rate of the highest performing DRS system (i.e., 97% reported in Germany). Therefore, manufacturers would need to consider changes to the design of their bottles, more specifically the colours they use for their products. Reducing the current opaque and coloured beverage bottles POM by 91% and thereby increasing the clear and light blue bottles POM by the same absolute numbers means that 75% recycled content in bottles overall can be achieved. In addition to the two scenarios considered for mechanical recycling there is potential for chemical recycling technologies, such as chemical depolymerisation, to contribute to PET circularity and achieve a 75% recycling content in all bottles. This industry has not reached maturity, however, and its true potential is not fully known at present, but it does appear that there is planned input capacity (sorted and clean post-consumer PET flake) of approximately 350 ktpa by 2025, that could be sufficient to achieve 75% content in bottles if food contact regulations allow. It is estimated in the report that in the future, we could see an increase in the upper limit of bottle-to-bottle recycling with a recycled content of somewhere between 61% and 75%, up from currently 17%. This is, however, on the assumption of prioritising closed loop recycling (ie., using rPET from bottles in bottles as opposed to other PET applications) to ensure maximum circularity. More realistically, based on market conditions, the study estimates the future use of recycled content in bottles to lie somewhere between a minimum policy driven target of 30% and the upper possible limit of 75%. When considering the impact the changes might have on all PET packaging, an increase of recycled content from 28% to somewhere in the region of 47% to 56% could be envisaged. For all PET applications, recycled content shifts from currently 24% to an upper limit of 41% to 42% in the future. This will happen only by: Prioritising bottle-to-bottle closed loop recycling instead of using rPET from bottles in other PET applications; Increasing the use of Deposit Return Schemes, which will improve collected material quantity and quality; and/or Switching from coloured and opaque PET to clear PET. www.zerowasteeurope.eu 17% 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 bottles current Recycling content future future with shift from coloured all PET packaging all PET 28% 24% 61% 47% 41% 75% 56% 42% Recycled content by manufacturing scope (source: Zero Waste Europe)

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MATERIALS / RECYCLING PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 05/22 www.petpla.net 16 Plastics separation of household plastics waste on particle level via magnetism Do you know the CO2 impact of your recycled bottle? Author: Lucy van Keulen, Commercial director, Umincorp Recycling has everyone’s attention. But what is the source of this recycled plastic: Does it come for example from the Netherlands or from Turkey? Does it come from households or from companies? How sustainable is it recycled? One recycled plastic is not like another, and there are large differences in emissions between plastic recycling methods, Lucy van Keulen from Netherlands-based Umincorp points out, and shares her opinion in this article on how post-consumer plastic waste can be recycled efficiently and what role the CO2 level is playing. The different plastic recycling methods vary in many aspects. The most common recycling approach in Europe uses infrared sensors to recognise the type of plastic to be recycled. This method has three challenges. First, it is limited in recognising packaging that consists of different types of plastic (broadly speaking PP, HDPE and PET), and the different types of plastics have to be pre-separated in a first step. The second challenge is that with this approach, a lot of input material is lost in getting from the mixed packaging to a pure end product. As a result, a significant portion cannot be sorted and ultimately recycled. The final challenge is that sorting often takes place somewhere other than the actual recycling. This leads to additional transportation, less optimisation and higher CO2 emissions. Magnetic density separation MDS (magnetic density separation), a mechanical recycling technique codeveloped by the founders of the Dutch company Umincorp, is an alternative to conventional mechanical recycling in which different types of plastic are separated using magnetism. In this process, the plastic is first split into small particles after which the particles, consisting of the three most common types of plastic, can be accurately separated from each other. Because the plastic can be separated at particle level, the recovery rate of this technique is claimed to be higher compared to conventional methods. It also allows both sorting and recycling to take place at the same location, thus reducing CO2 emissions. CO2 reduction remains underexamined in the current way we look at recycling. If we hold producers responsible for the total CO2 emissions in the chain, the actual impact of a product, including production, packaging and recycling becomes clear. The current discussion in the market about mechanical versus chemical recycling, becomes also direct clear when CO2 emissions are taking into account. An example can be seen with supermarkets that put minced meat in multilayer bags, thus saving on the amount of packaging compared to the original container. Often, however, the sachet is less recyclable, or not recyclable at all, whereas the PET container was. By approaching packaging on the basis of CO2 emissions, companies can make the right choices while explaining them to consumers. A kind of CO2 label for packaging, similar to the nutrition label, could also give consumers more insight and thus help them make the most sustainable choice. Insight into the chain Another risk of the increasing popularity of recycling is the lack of understanding of the origin of the recycled plastic. There is already not enough PET or HDPE available in Europe to meet the demand of packaging producers. If new plastic is produced outside of Europe, chopped up and then sent to Europe as recyclate, this completely misses the point. However, due to a lack of full insight of the supply chain, such procedures cannot be ruled out. Legislators also play a stimulating role in this. In the UK, companies have to pay extra tax on packaging that does not consist of at least 30% recycled material. The expectation is that this will increase the proportion of recycled material in packaging by 40%, saving about 200,000t of CO2 emissions in the short term. There are several levers that the entire plastic chain can pull simultaneously to reduce the climate impact of plastics. Every step in the chain, whether it is the producer, designer, legislator, recycler or consumer, should look at actually reducing the CO2 impact. More traceability, knowledge and understanding is needed to properly compare the different options. www.umincorp.com CO2 reduction remains underexamined in the current way we look at recycling, Lucy van Keulen states. RECYCLING

MATERIALS / RECYCLING PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 05/22 www.petpla.net 17 MATERIALS / RECYCLING 17 www.sacmi.com Product design Product development Product validation Industrial production plant Process & quality control On-site and start-up assistance After-sales and Customer service SACMI 4.0 THE COMPLETE CLOSURE, PREFORM AND CONTAINER SOLUTION FOR YOUR SMART FACTORY E N D L E S S I N N O V A T I O N S I N C E 1 9 1 9 Magnetic density separation (MDS) principle Umincorp’s patented mechanical recycling process is based on flake sorting. In an early stage of the process, all incoming plastics are cut into flakes and separated via MDS. The MDS application, with a capacity of 10,000 t/a, makes use of specially designed magnets in combination with a unique water-based process fluid to separate heterogeneous input flows on density levels of each individual particle in one step. The magneto-responsive fluid, produced in-house at Umincorp, together with the permanent magnet, creates the required density gradient so that there are different densities at different heights in the machine. Particles flow through the density field, with light particles floating on the surface while heavier particles are suspended in the liquid below at different depths according to their density. The separation for the production of pure material fractions of equal densities are combined into one process by setting splitters in the right positions. The use of MDS in the plastics industry is claimed to result in high purity PP, HDPE, PS, PET, ABS, PVC, or other plastics fractions that can be used directly in new end products. Umincorp was established in 2012 to develop and market its MDS technology. The idea was born in 2005 under the lead of Professor Peter Rem at the Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands.

MATERIALS / RECYCLING PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 05/22 www.petpla.net 18 New extended producer responsibility (EPR) legislation is a benefi t, one of Africa’s largest PET recyclers explains Team work in the plastics value chain Plastic strapping is used to secure unstable goods during transit. From a circular economy perspective, both PET bottles and PET strapping can be diverted from landfill, and economically recovered and recycled into new products, without compromising the quality of the end product. As a manufacturer of strapping, Extrupet, like other packaging producers, is now obligated to either join an existing producer responsibility organisation (PRO), start a new PRO or run an individual compliance scheme, as part of the National Environmental Management Waste Act (NEMWA) Section 18 mandatory EPR regulations, which came into effect in South Africa in November 2021. In terms of the regulations, producers must take practical and financial responsibility for the full lifecycle of their products. This means designing packaging with recyclability and circularity in mind and also including more recycled content in their products. “Many companies are still importing rPET strapping, so closing the loop locally provides another high-value end-use for rPET, aside from bottle-tobottle recycling, or turning it into polyester staple fibre,” said Extrupet joint managing director Chandru Wadhwani. While clear PET plastic bottles had the highest commercial value for bottle-tobottle recycling, Wadhwani explained that green and brown PET bottles had limited end-use products associated with them, because they discoloured the recyclate and could not be used for bottle-to-bottle recycling. “In the past, plastic strapping has provided a viable end-use market for coloured rPET. As producers begin to move away from coloured to clear bottles for maximum recyclability, the clear bottles can now also serve as feedstock for strapping,” he said. “I would like to encourage companies to support homegrown circular initiatives. The more enduse markets we develop for rPET, the more the benefits will be felt along the entire value chain – right down to the waste pickers.” Petco CEO Cheri Scholtz said the Section 18 regulations essentially compelled all organisations and companies involved along the plastics value chain to work as a team to ensure that less waste ended up in landfill. In terms of the regulations, every brand owner, converter, or retailer that places more than 10t/a of identified plastic packaging onto the consumer market is deemed a producer and is required to pay an EPR fee per tonne. The knock-on effect of mandatory EPR is set to be heightened investment in infrastructure to support the sustainability of the recycling sector – from the waste pickers who collect recyclables, to the buy-back centres who purchase and re-sell the materials, and the largescale recyclers who turn these into recyclate that can be made into new products. “Without EPR, we wouldn’t be able to scale collection and recycling rates sufficiently to make a meaningful difference to the amount of packaging waste that ends up in the environment each year,” she said. Wadhwani said there was a delicate balance between collection, recycling capacity and demand for rPET in the recycling value chain: “As the only Section 18-registered strapping producer in South Africa, our strapping helps to maintain that balance by providing another end-use market for rPET. Growth in rPET production and consumption is ultimately key to ensuring the sustainability of both the PET and recycling industry,” he said. Strapping falls into the PET flexibles category where legislated targets state that 50% of the product must comprise rPET, 10% must be collected, and 9% recycled. Petco and Extrupet will be working together to achieve these mandated targets. www.petco.co.za www.extrupet.com RECYCLING To reduce the amount of packaging waste sent to landfill and to accelerate the circular economy, South Africa has implemented EPR regulations. One of the biggest recyclers of PET bottles on the African continent, Extrupet, has been guided in its journey by long-standing producer responsibility organisation Petco. At the same time – and in a first for South Africa – Extrupet is helping its partner to develop an additional end-use market for recycled PET (rPET) in the manufacture of rPET industrial strapping. rPET strapping Chandru Wadhwani, Joint Managing Director Extrupet

MATERIALS / RECYCLING PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 05/22 www.petpla.net 19 MATERIALS / RECYCLING 19 PETplanet: Extrupet recently announced an expansion of the food-grade PET recycling operations in South Africa. Can you please explain the background and the capacities you are aiming to achieve? Wadhwani: We will double our food-grade operations by adding a second food-grade rPET facility, which will increase our recycling capacity by an additional 33,000 t/a. Currently Extrupet has one Vacurema and two Starlinger lines based out of Johannesburg. PETplanet: Can you envisage transferring your expertise to other African countries and expanding further outside South Africa? Wadhwani: We are currently in dialogue to make investments in West and East Africa, namely Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. PETplanet: What directives or legally prescribed recycling quotas must be complied with in S. Africa? Wadhwani: November of 2021 saw the beginning of this kind of legislation. Extended producer responsibility (EPR) was gazetted across three main sectors, namely, 1) electrical and electronic equipment, 2) the lighting sector, and 3) paper, packaging and single use products. For PET beverage packaging specifically, there would need to be a 10% inclusion rate of rPET in year 1, 12.5% in year 2, 13% in year 3, 15% in year 4 and 20% in year 5 in order for the bottle to comply. PETplanet: To meet these quotas, how could a reliable and predictable availability of in coming material be further improved? Wadhwani: In South Africa, most of the bottle raw material originates from landfill. Separation at source projects spearheaded by government would be a great starting point and certainly help the quality of incoming raw material. There would however be a cost associated with this, and to get the process subsidised as in Europe would be the ultimate goal. PETplanet: What is the quality of the material you receive? Wadhwani: Most of the raw material collected originates through an informal collection system, and once delivered to our factory the yield loss is as much as 35% from beginning to end. PETplanet: Which markets are you supplying with your food-grade rPET? Wadhwani: Africa, EU, UK, Australia, and the USA. There are different approval / certification levels needed for each; however our main food approval agencies, BRC, FDA, EFSA, SMETA and ISO cover most of our customer needs. PETplanet: Recently, the price for vPET was fetching around 1,700€/t, a very high value, but the price for rPET flakes was as high as 1,950€/t and for granules even 2,200€/t or more. Are you concerned about this development? Wadhwani: Yes, we are very concerned as pricing will have a huge impact on the availability of feedstock. Without which one cannot produce food grade rPET. PETplanet: Thank you very much, Mr Wadhwani! Expanding recycling capabilities South Africa’s PET recycling industry is performing well. In 2019, a total of 2.2 billion bottles were collected which amounted to a 62% recycling rate. Recycling company Extrupet announced in April a further expansion of their food-grade plastics recycling operations. We spoke to Chandru Wadhwani, Extrupet’s Joint Managing Director. STADLER’s Label Remover is just what your plastic bottles need! No bottleneck losses Better subsequent NIR detection, due to rougher surfaces of the bottles after leaving our Label Remover Economic advantage for washing systems Outstanding results with PET, PE and PP STADLER: for a clean world! STADLER Anlagenbau GmbH +49 7584 9226-0 info@w-stadler.de www.w-stadler.de LABELS: SUPERBLY REMOVED by Gabriele Kosmehl

MATERIALS / RECYCLING PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 05/22 www.petpla.net 20 Inline inspection also for colour deviation Monitoring rPET preforms In recent years, the proportion of recycled material in preforms has gradually increased - initially for reasons of cost and image, and recently because it was required by law. Although this regulation makes sense from the point of view of resources conservation, the use of rPET has some negative effects on the quality of the preforms. To address these directly, it makes sense to have a monitoring system in the production line that is fully dedicated to inspecting recycled preforms. RECYCLING Yellowing is certainly the most obvious quality-reducing effect that occurs when rPET is used to produce preforms. By yellowing, a slight discouloration of the preform caused by the recycled material is meant. Just imagine how water can look in a yellowed PET bottle for the end consumer. That is why the yellowing effect is considered particularly critical by any preform producer. Targeted inspection for yellowing Intravis launched the preform monitoring system PreMon which is used inline directly behind the injection moulding machine. It provides comprehensive information about the products’ quality to the system operator. It has been optimised especially for the inspection of rPET preforms: In addition to the inspection of typical criteria such as contaminations in the body area as well as short shots and defects at the sealing surface, the PreMon also features a sophisticated colour inspection that outputs an explicit yellowing value. Thus, the operator can immediately determine the influence more or less rPET has on the quality of the produced preforms and can react accordingly, for example by adding certain additives. Clear dashboards to keep track of production As a monitoring system, the PreMon provides its operator with a comprehensive quality picture without the need to thoroughly inspect each preform. The data and information obtained is presented in a newly designed dashboard. The PreMon’s Octabin Statistics will provide the information which is needed. If one would rather find out about the quality of the whole production based on a time interval or specific inspection criteria, then the PreMon supports data with the IntraVision statistics dashboard. A special feature of the PreMon is the so-called ejection compensation. In addition to shot counting, the PreMon offers an ejector as an optional extension. Both combined, the operator is able to control the amount of preforms in his octabins in a targeted manner, and to actively influence the quality in his octabins. If a specified amount of defective preforms are ejected, the PreMon com-

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