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PADERBORN, Germany -- Fruit drinks company Stute Nahrungsmittelwerke rigorously pursues its eco-friendly strategic thrust. After investing in three wind farms, a biogas system and several solar power installations that together cover more than 30% Stute’s own energy requirements, this privately owned company will in future also be able to completely recycle PET material.
In August 2012, the Paderborn-headquartered beverage plant will be commissioning Germany’s first PET recycling line from Krones. The SuperClean-PET-flake process is able to produce flakes at a high degree of purity, which can be directly used for making new bottles. Conventional processes, by contrast, require additional steps for creating food-grade recyclate.
With this process, Stute plans to feed back into its bottle production operation both PET bottles and preforms. This also includes bottles that have already come into contact with product. The recycling process washes and decontaminates the rejected PET, thus guaranteeing its suitability for future food-grade applications.
From recycling line directly into the injection-moulding machine The PET materials waiting to be recycled are first comminuted and then fed to the washing system’s storage silo. The PET recycling line is made up of the following main components: washing module, decontamination module, plus the peripherals.
The line is installed on two different levels: the washing module and the decontamination module are spatially separated, with the latter located directly next to the existing injection-moulding machines for producing preforms.
Closed circuit process For Stute, the installation is a strategic investment. Instead of shipping the recyclate to meet China’s huge demand (as is customary in the sector), the beverage firm wanted to create a sustainable, closed-circuit process within its own production facility right from the start. And, of course, the sector is still living under the Damocles sword of a politically inspired additional deposit on non-returnable PET. This extra burden may be evaded only by a relatively high proportion of recyclate, as the PETCycle system goes to show.
The decision in favour of Krones was an easy one since it is the only manuAir Max 90 Ultra BR