Extrusion Asia Edition 1-2023

line has taken up production in July 2022 and has an output of up to 1,800 kg of recycled PET pellets per hour. The food-safe rPET is supplied to environment-conscious and quality-focused brands which use it in their brand packaging. Khandelwal describes the special challenges the company is fac- ing with regard to food-grade applications: “Raw material qua- lity is highly variable, especially in India. The scrap has all kinds of impurities and every batch that enters the factory is different. It has taken us 30 years to understand and master the art of handling such waste. With the world’s best technologies, we can now achieve the quality needed for food-grade applica- tions.” With the new PET bottle-to-bottle recycling plant, Go Rewise ranks among the first recycled PET brands in India to provide food-grade rPET for the local and international packaging mar- ket. According to Khandelwal, the high acceptability by brand owners was one of the reasons Ganesha opted for Starlinger technology. “Starlinger’s PET recycling technology has received several Letters of Non-Objection from the US FDA as well as po- sitive opinions of Europe’s EFSA for food-grade applications and is already well known among brand owners. The proven Star- linger quality, equipment reliability and technology standard, as well as efficient resource consumption while delivering best qua- lity output were additional points,” he stated. With both new Starlinger lines operational, the rPET production capacity of Ganesha’s Go Rewise facility currently reaches 40,000 tons per year. Ganesha Ecosphere has a remarkable history in PET recycling,” said Paul Niedl, Commercial Head of Starlinger recycling tech- nology. “The company’s founder Shyam Sunder Sharmma re- cognised the big potential that used PET bottles provide as a secondary resource at a remarkably early stage, making the com- pany a trailblazer for bottle-to-fibre and now bottle-to-bottle applications. We feel proud to support Ganesha Ecosphere in reducing plastic waste and establishing a closed loop for PET bottle waste in India, a country with great potential in this sec- tor.” A PET recycling pioneer Ganesha Ecosphere looks back on 30 years of experience in the PET recycling business and can be considered a role model re- garding sustainable business activities. Founded in 1987, the company started out as a yarn processing facility. It was among the first companies in India to start repro- cessing PET waste to manufacture recycled polyester staple fibre (RPSF) and recycled polyester spun yarns (RPSY) in 1994. By today, the group has established a large network of over 300 scrap vendors located across the country and operates four fac- tories in India – two in Uttar Pradesh, one in Uttarakhand, and the recently opened one in Telangana. It also recently operation- alised its first factory outside India in Nepal. With over 500 customers and exports to more than 18 coun- tries, the company ranks among the largest rPET producers in India with 130,000 tonnes per year and currently recycles around 16 to 18 % of India’s total PET waste. ➠ Starlinger recycling technology Furtherstrasse 47a, 2564 Weissenbach, Austria www.recycling.starlinger.com ➠ Ganesha Ecopet Private Limited https://ganeshaecosphere.com/ https://gorewise.com/ 66 回收利用 Extrusion Asia Edition 1/2023