Extrusion International 4-2023

44 Extrusion International 4/2023 RECYCLING Filtration Technology for PET Recycling PolyEthyleneTerephthalate or simply PET, is one of the most recyclable plastics, widely used world-wide in many different applications. Light, strong, durable and safe, PET offers a number of advantages being almost uniquely among plastics. Because of PET’s incredible performance and recyclability it is one of the most sustainable packaging materials. It is in fact approved as safe for use in direct food contact all over EU, as well as many other Countries, both in virgin or recycled form. Its uses vary from food, beverage, pharmaceutical and medical sectors, clothing, automotives, outperforming other plastic packaging. 70% of carbonated soft drinks, fruit juices, dilutable drinks and bottled water are made of PET. P ET is near-infinitely recyclable and because it can be made into new products, lowers the need for virgin PET, reducing CO2 emissions and helping to achieve a ful- ly circular economy. Recycled PET products show a drop of up to 90% in CO 2 emissions compared to virgin PET. Most major brands using plastics in their supply chains have started to evaluate their carbon footprint and take mitigating actions like packaging redesign and light-weighting, reducing the use for virgin plastics, in- creasing reusability, and setting targets for minimum recycled plastic content. As brands strive to meet their targets, they are collectively expanding demand and in- creasingly competing for available rPET. Another factor driving the demand for and supply of rPET are the new regulations and taxes on packaging made from virgin plastics / single-use plastics packaging. Rising rPET demand and prices are incentivizing in- vestments in new recycling capacity – Europe has seen a 21% increase in the installed capacity for PET recycling – according to a report by Plastics Recyclers Europe, PET- CORE Europe, Natural Mineral Water Europe (NMWE), and UNESDA Soft Drinks Europe – at the same time global rPET capacity is fore- cast to boom over the next five years. This “run” towards ever increasingly de- mand for rPET, has led producers of PET packaging products (both food grade and non-food grade ap- plications) to look for more contaminated sources of PET waste. FIMIC’s melt filters are recognized as one of the best filtration technologies dedi- cated to contaminated post-consumer plastics; to reach high quality recycled plastics from more contaminated waste streams, automatic technologies are needed to filter out impurities and contaminations from the melt flow. FIMIC has been working many years now on im -