Recycling machinery supplier EREMA will be exhibiting at North American plastics show NPE 2018, to be held in Orlando 7-11 May, with a focus on “top process and quality standards”, the Austrian company said in a 15 March statement.
Commenting on the company's presence at the show, Mike Horrocks, CEO EREMA North America, said the focus of the company's technical developments was on increasing the quality of recyclates.
"Plastics recycling is more an opportunity than an alternative with regard to sustainability and against the backdrop of increasing prices for landfilling,” Horrocks noted.
To increase recyclate quality, the company has developed ReFresher anti-odour technology which enables it to open up new application opportunities for plastics recycling.
The EREMA statement also noted an upswing in the US plastics recycling industry, thanks to the Chinese ban on waste imports, and growing circular economy movement.
"If I had to describe the current situation of the plastics industry in the US in just one word, 'dynamic' would probably be the most appropriate," said Martin Baumann, vice president sales of EREMA North America.
And Baumann could see further potential behind the Chinese ban, which came into effect as of 2018.
"China's no longer being an international customer for post-consumer waste plastic is a dramatic development. But since, unlike waste plastic, high-quality recycled pellets can still be exported to China, this represents a potential opportunity for plastics recycling in the US and Canada,” he noted.
EREMA North America has now added an Intarema TVEplus with Laserfilter to its technical centre so that its customers can trial, in particular, the recycling of post-consumer materials with a high degree of contamination.
This system typically processes film waste with paper labels from commercial waste or washed film from curbside waste to make film-grade pellets.
At the EREMA booth at NPE, an Intarema T 1108 will be live in action, processing clean LDPE production waste directly and without pre-shredding to make high-quality recyclates.
Also on display at the trade fair will be EREMA melt filters, which will be represented at NPE for the first time.
The filter systems are now also available as individual components for extrusion plants from other suppliers.
Additionally, EREMA will be providing details on its rPET Inline Preform system at its booth.
Italian PET packaging firm SIPA has joined forces with EREMA to develop a flexible, direct processing solution to make food-contact-compliant preforms from rPET flakes – in a continuous process.
The system, according to EREMA, will offer advantages in energy savings, lower logistics and process costs and higher profitability.
NPE2018 is scheduled for 7-11 May in Orlando, Florida. EREMA is exhibiting in booth W1249.