Extrusion International 1-2020

17 Extrusion International 1/2020 maag.com NEXT LEVEL SOLUTIONS Integrated Systems for Polymer Processing MAAG Group is the Partner for the Polymer Processing Industry worldwide. All of our in- tegrated solutions from Pump and Filtration Systems to Pelletizing and Pulverizing systems to Recycling Systems have an outstanding perfor- mance for demanding customer requirements. ALPLA Group, an international plastic packaging and recy- cling specialist, joins a new consortium for chemical recycling of PET. The consortium intends to speed up the commerciali- sation of enhanced recycling technology, BP Infinia, which turns opaque and difficult-to-recycle PET plastic waste into recycled feedstocks. Leading companies operating across the polyester packag- ing value chain – including businesses involved in the manu- facture, use, collection and recycling of polyethylene tere- phthalate (PET) plastic packaging – today announced they have formed a new consortium that aims to help to address the problem of plastic waste by accelerating the commercial- isation of BP Infinia enhanced recycling technology. The consortium intends to combine the capabilities and ex- perience of its members – packaging and recycling specialist ALPLA; food, drink and consumer goods producers Britvic, Danone and Unilever; waste management and recycling spe- cialist Remondis; and energy and petrochemicals producer BP – to develop a new circular approach to dealing with PET plastic waste. PET is a plastic widely used for rigid food packaging and drinks, personal care and homecare bottles. It is a light- weight, durable and versatile material and one of the most collected and recycled types of plastic.[1] Of the PET plas- tic bottles collected globally, more than 75 per cent are re- cycled, but only 12 per cent of those collected make it back into new bottles.[2] The remainder is currently lost from the bottle-to-bottle loop[3], as it is used for other applications which are usually disposed of directly after use to landfills or incinerators, due to lack of separate collection. ALPLA Werke Alwin Lehner GmbH & Co KG www.alpla.com The consortium members believe by joining forces they can speed up the commercialisation of the technology, infrastruc- ture and demand needed to process billions of opaque and dif- ficult-to-recycle PET bottles and food trays that are currently dis- posed of each year, including those that are difficult to recycle by current conventional recyclingmethods.[4] Notes [1] Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation: The New Plastics Economy, Napcor. [2] Based on Wood MacKenzie Chemicals Data. PETcollection rates are based on bottle consumption alone; of the 27 million tonnes of PET produced for food and drinks packaging, 23 million tonnes is consumed as bottles and 4 million tonnes as thermoformed products, such as food trays. In 2019, it is estimated that some 13 million tonnes of bottles are collected globally and converted into 10 million tonnes of post-consumer resin. Of that, 1.6 million tonnes is used for bottles. [3] Recycling a PET bottle back into a new PET bottle. [4] Source: BP calculations based on production of recycled PTA from multiple facilities – amounting to a scale equivalent to a typical virgin PTA plant of around 1 million tonnes – would require total feedstock of many millions of tonnes of opaque and difficult-to-recycle PET packaging. Based on the aver- age weight of specific packaging types suitable for this technology (from 10 to 30 grams), this feedstock would equate to billions of packaging items. Consortium for Chemical Recycling