Starlinger - recycling technology for PET flakes

PET is one of the few thermoplastics that can be upcycled to achieve resin-like quality through SSP treatment. Today, post- consumer bottle flakes are successfully used for food-contact packaging, high-IV strapping bands, and filaments. Bottle-to-bottle recycling requires the highest standards in terms of decontamination. Due to its favourable characteristics, the use of PET (polyethylene terephtalate) for food-contact packaging is a success story. But it also causes more PET waste, which in turn raises public interest in this issue. Recycling contributes significantly towards a positive perception of PET packaging: It increases ecological awareness and induces collection of post-consumer waste and obligatory reuse of recycled PET (rPET). Also major brand-owners jump on the bandwagon and promote low carbon footprint and resource conservation. Starlinger recycling equipment has proven its high decontamination capability in a series of challenge tests. The rPET produced on Starlinger recycling machinery can be used at a rate of up to 100 % for direct food-contact packaging. Be part of the solution It is projected that within the next ten years the worldwide consumption of PET bottles will double. Even assuming ambitious collection rates, the major share of PET waste will end up in land-fills. Washed and processed PET bottles are a valuable secondary resource. In this context, it is the consumers’ responsibility to contribute to recycling efforts and to welcome products with rPET content – bottles that are turned into fibres, filaments and nonwovens, sheet, strapping, and, most prominently, into bottles again. PET recycling: Resource conservation through upcycling Safety first for the whole value chain The various stakeholders in a recycling project have different expectations: • The authorities have to make sure that laws for food-safety are observed. • The recyclers need efficient and flexible recycling equipment to ensure competitiveness in a volatile industry. Process stability and automatisation guarantee the production of food-contact safe pellets. • The preform producers demand resin-like quality in terms of viscosity (IV), flow characteristics and processability. • Bottlers and brand-owners require high rPET content without jeopardizing the visual appearance. • And finally, all stakeholders including the consumers need to be absolutely certain that the packaging is safe.

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