EDITOUR PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 09/22 www.petpla.net 10 Post-consumer PET tray recycling “No multilayers, please!” June 2022 We met: Michael Heitzinger, CEO at Erema When Erema talks about plastic recycling in the sense of “cycling”, i.e. a circulation system, it’s pretty credible. For 39 years, the company has been manufacturing recycling systems. We spoke to CEO Michael Heitzinger about the latest developments in more than just the rPET field. Tour Sponsors: PETplanet: Mr Heitzinger, Erema has been building recycling systems for almost 40 years? For how many years have you also been active in the rPET sector and where is the trend going? Mr Heitzinger: We have been working on the rPET product application for a good 20 years. Plastic recycling is booming overall, especially PET recycling. We notice that the shift to ever larger plants is progressing very rapidly. A few years ago, recycling plants were in the range of 1 t/h and 2.4 t/h per machine. Of course, this varies from PET to polyolefin. Now, in early summer, we have just finished testing and delivering our first 6 t/h PET line in our factory hall and the machine is now already installed at our German customer. Besides the great political pressure to build up recycling capacities, securing the material flows is the first big barrier or gateway for recyclers to be able to grow. The processing logistics for used PET bottles are already lagging behind the required and desired rPET volume and the lack of mass flow is already limiting larger investments. Only those who can secure the material have the opportunity to earn money with rPET. In parallel, the processing of rPET material is becoming increasingly important and intensive. The progress in technical processing, pre-sorting, sorting, washing (hot or cold) has been implemented and only needs to be used more. PETplanet: The proportion of recyclate in bottles is increasing. What does this mean for the system manufacturers? Mr Heitzinger: Today we are talking about up to 100% recyclate in a bottle, which means that yellow and grey haze must be avoided. For this reason, in Vacunite, our rPET system, the material is never heated above 150 °C if atmospheric oxygen is still present. Above that, only nitrogen mixture is used to prevent yellow discolouration of the material, because this discolouration property cannot be reversed. In addition to discolouration, material quality in terms of constant IV and cleanliness is becoming more and more important, because the weight of PET bottles (0.25 l) is moving from 24 g/bottle to 8 - 9 g/bottle as at Niagara Waters in the USA, which increases the challenge in production. The separation of the coloured bottle flakes is an important part of the processing, prior to extrusion, and is usually carried out on our own extruder lines. Due to higher recycling rates and increased awareness, more and more PET bottles are being made transparent and the “colour” is applied to the label. Basically, coloured rPET granulate still finds good sales markets in the staple fibre industry. But also in the fibre industry there is a growing awareness to use more recycled material. So we already have more than 30 plants processing PET bottle flakes into high-quality POY fibre. Unfortunately, this is a “material loss” for the real closed loop process from bottle-to-bottle. PETplanet: Your latest project is the processing of PET trays? Mr Heitzinger: Yes, this is a material stream that is still difficult to handle and must be specially prepared and processed. A thoroughly difficult product niche, since the material cannot be collected so easy by type like the PET bottle and has a high potential for multilayer components. Nevertheless, a material stream of the future. “From niche existence to musthave.” These are just a few words to describe the development that plastics recycling has undergone in recent years. The plastic packaging manufacturer Faerch from Denmark and Erema customer in the field of Michael Heitzinger, CEO at Erema Alexander Büchler enjoys the overview of a large Vacurema system.
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