Ingka Holding BV, a Dutch holding group and the parent company of Swedish home store IKEA, has acquired a 24% minority share in Austrian recycling equipment supplier Next Generation Recycling Group (NGR).
The investment, said NGR in a 27 Nov statement, will enable the company to further develop new technologies and expand its service offering to the plastic recycling industry.
Founded in 1996 in Feldkirchen, Austria, NGR manufactures a full range of post-consumer, post-industrial and PET recycling machinery and is working on new technologies such as liquid recycling of PET.
The liquid state polycondensation (LSP) technology, which was unveiled by the company as recently as early November, involves the decontamination and rebuilding of the molecular chain structure in the liquid phase of the PET, allowing recyclers more flexibility with regards to the input materials.
The process, which is claimed by NGR to produce food-grade materials, can mix and recycle different forms of PET waste, from bottle flake to scrap fibre, sheet, thermoform waste, strapping, and other lower value scrap streams.
Commenting on the acquisition, Krister Mattsson, Head of Ingka Investments, said NGR was an “interesting company with great potential” in line with Ingka's sustainability commitments.
“We have a clear strategy for our minority investments to support innovative companies and create room for them to develop. We have a long-term commitment in all our investments,” added Mattsson.