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| End products from rPET |
The Starlinger brand equals quality and efficiency in PET recycling. Over twenty food-grade PET recycling plants for a throughput of 150 to 3,600 kg per hour have been commissioned by the company in the last five years throughout the world. Large range of extruder sizes, from 65 to 330, and a choice of equipment setups makes it possible for recyclers to tailor the capacity of their machinery to specific requirements, including the nature of waste material and final rPET use. The most often, the recycled material is used for producing food-grade containers and PET bottles, including the bottle-to-bottle concept.
Long-standing partnerships are beneficial
Partnering with a system supplier consistently brings numerous mutual benefits. Many of Starlinger customers have been around for over ten years, and for a reason: recycling lines from the Austrian specialist boast increased reliability and availability. One example would be the collaboration with the German recycler BTB PET-Recycling GmbH & Co. KG from the town of Bad Salzuflen that processes granulated PET material into food-grade rPET for film/preform applications.
BTB has purchased recoSTAR PET 165 iV+ back in 2007, and the plant has been in operation for the impressive 76 thousand hours, that is, in continuous operation with short servicing breaks. Two years ago, the recycler chose to upgrade this equipment for a higher output, which was completed successfully in 2016; a second capacity upgrade is scheduled in the offing.
Meticulous PET regranulate decontamination is a must
Both international institutions and local authorities impose stringent requirements on the purity of recycled PET material aimed at direct contact with food/drinks. Moreover, recyclers that follow bottle-to-bottle scheme have often to comply with critical level norms of brand owners. Thus, a meticulous decontamination of incoming PET material is a must in the present-day industry.
With this in mind, Starlinger created PET iV+ recycling process that exceeds the aforementioned requirements. European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) have continually evaluated the process and concluded that recycled PET produced with it suits food-grade preform production perfectly and can be used with no addition of virgin material. Today's cumulated performance of bottle-to-bottle recyclers worldwide reaches 500 thousand tons annually, which reflects the popular appeal of the decontamination process developed by Starlinger in the recycling sector.
Bottle-to-fabric: A novel PET recycling concept by Starlinger
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| Bottle-to-fabric production concept |
Readily recyclable PET materials bring clear benefits to the bottle-to-bottle sector, but are worth investing in other fields of research as evidenced by the production technology for tape fabric made from recycled PET, developed by Starlinger since 2010. As applied to food-grade packaging, PET fabric equals food-grade safety and visual attractiveness. Moreover, this material is highly resistant to fatigue and creep, keeping its strength even in hot conditions of up to 80 °C, which makes it ideal for the production of heavy-duty fabrics (bulk bag, carpet backing, geotextile, tarpaulin).
By the time of K 2016 trade fair, Starlinger engineers were able to provide the technology for dog-food sack production from rPET flakes only with no virgin material.
This enables further recycling of PET tape fabric for packaging production, aimed at reducing carbon footprint of existing packaging solutions drastically.
