Extrusion International USA 1-2022

46 Extrusion International 1/2022 POLYESTER RECYCLING – INTERVIEW How Spinning and Recycling Go Together Dr Schäfer, BB Engineering has its or- igins in themanufacture of extrusion and fi ltration systems for synthetic fi ber spinning equipment. How did you come to open a new business unit dedicated to PET recycling? Dr Klaus Schäfer: You are funda- mentally right. Our original business the form of the VarioFil. Our extrud- er and fi lters have also been used for rPET for many years now. We fi rst supplied components for rPET back in 2005. For these reasons, PET recy- cling was not something completely new to us. In 2012, we unveiled the VarioFil type ‘R’, which also spins rPET granulate into high-end yarn. And, in 2016, we went a step fur- ther with the type ‘R+’: the direct processing of bottle fl akes using our compact spinning system – in other words, recycling and spinning in a single step. The background to this was to dispense with the intermedi- ate step of producing the granulate, hence saving lots of energy and cut- ting conversion costs, and to create high-quality POY from bottle fl akes. What potential bene fi ts do you see in the recycling of synthetic fi bers? Dr Schäfer: Apart from the social responsibility of acting in a resource- and environmentally-friendly man- ner, we believe that recycling fi bers presents our customers with consid- erable commercial opportunities. Firstly, there is productionwaste. De- spite spinning technology becoming was, and remains, focused on com- ponents such as extruders and fi lters for processing the most diverse poly- mers into synthetic fi bers, but also into fi lms and on developing and dis- tributing other products. Soon, our portfolio was complemented by our own compact spinning system – in As a medium-sized German machine construction business, BB Engineering has been manufacturing components and systems for synthetic fi ber and fi lm production for more than 20 years. For several years now, the company has been concentrating on recycling system development work. We discussed just how the seemingly different business units interact and how the recycling business pro fi ts from the existing extrusion and spinning systems know-how with Dr Klaus Schäfer, Managing Director, and Matthias Schmitz, Head of Engineering Recycling Technology Matthias Schmitz, Head of Engineering Recycling Technology (left) and Dr Klaus Schäfer, Managing Director of BB Engineering GmbH (right) Matthias Schmitz and Dr Klaus Schäfer by the VacuFil test system at the company HQ in Remscheid