Extrusion International USA 5-2020

36 Extrusion International 5/2020 RECYCLING In thepast 20 years, total textileproductionhas doubled, and from 2000 to 2016, the use of polyester for clothing alone rose from 8.3 to 21.3 million tonnes worldwide. At the same time, the public’s call for the avoidance of plastic waste is be- coming louder and legal directives of the European Union are intended to put a stop to plastic waste. For example, in addition to the collection of plastic, glass, paper andmetal, a separate collection system for textiles is to be implemented in all EU countries by 2025 to enable high-quality recycling. In addition, productmanufacturers are beingmademore re- sponsible through the environmental protection strategy of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). They are to ensure the entire life cycle of their product from manufacture to disposal so that goals such as ecological design and resource efficiency can be achieved more quickly. In addition to the recyclability of products, the use of recycled materials is one way to achieve these goals. However, this is precisely where problems often arise: The demand for the increased use of recycled materials in textiles requires a sufficient and regular availability of these materials. Well available on the market is the recycled PET frombeveragebottles, which is available in very goodquality due to the clean collection systems. However, the increased use of r-PET, especially for packaging applications and tex- tile fiber production, has led to a strong increase in demand in recent years, so that in addition to the increased market price, other recycledmaterials must now be used. Possible retrofit of key components Production processes that were previously designed only for the processing of virgin material and thus achieved con- sistently high qualities under known conditions, are now severely disturbed or interrupted by contamination and strongly fluctuating material qualities at a higher recycling rate. Constant mechanical properties and uniform dyeability of the fibers or special requirements such as very fine fibers or use in direct body contact can no longer be achieved with the existing production lines. Therefore, plants are required which on the one hand can process recycled material – even in lower quality – andon theother hand cangenerate ahigh- quality end product without impurities. This is exactly where theGerman companyGneuss comes inwith itsmachine com- Breathable sports and outdoor clothing are in vogue. Combined with the “fast fashionmotto” and the “mass instead of class principle”, this is creating increased demand for PET fibers worldwide. This, in turn, leads to an increase in production waste, as this is automatically generated during fiber production. For ecological and economic reasons, the fiber residues must be appropriately processed and reused, which in some cases poses major challenges for fiber manufacturers and processors. Several customers, including large fiber manufacturers in China and Belarus, have therefore decided to use key components fromGneuss Kunststofftechnik in Bad Oeynhausen, Germany. With these they were able to convert existing fiber lines with low investment costs, so that the complete fiber waste can be processed into high quality fibers. And this is even possible for the production of drawn yarns such as POY or FDY, where the use of recycledmaterial has up to now not been possible PET Fiber Production – Zero-Waste Cycle Thanks to Retrofitted Components Shot taken during the installation of anMRS extrusion line at Suzhou Shenghong Fiber Co. Ltd, Jiangsu province, P.R.China Filter disc and filter elements of the fully automatic Rotary Filtration System RSFgenius