Austrian machinery manufacturer EREMA has revealed its latest bottle-to-bottle PET recycling technology.
The company has said that its VACUNITE technology produces a unique quality pellet that exceeds all food contact requirements.
It works by combining EREMA’s VACUREMA bottle-to-bottle process with the newly patented, vacuum-supported solid state polycondensation from Polymatrix.
With all thermal processes taking place in a nitrogen atmosphere, this eliminates flake and pellet discolouration, while also removing additives which could lead to undesired reactions in the melt.
EREMA business development manager for the bottle sector Christoph Wöss said: “The growing commitment in society to handling plastics in a responsible way means that both political requirements and voluntary pledges of major beverage brands call for a significant increase in the amount of recyclate in end products.
“To fulfil these requirements, even more material in general and with varying quality due to different collection systems has to be recycled while, at the same time, the big brands are becoming even stricter with their requirements regarding the recyclates produced.”
An un-named European company has already ordered the equipment for its new rPET plant.