1. How are sales going in 2024?
They will increase compared to 2023. Last year was a record breaking year. We are only half way through the year now, but I’m pretty sure we will increase sales. I’m not yet sure by how much, but I hope by more than 2% or 3%. Last year, we had an increase of 30%. That will not happen this year, but there will be an increase nonetheless.
I think what sets us apart is what you get: you pay for something that works really well. We try to make all features better - that is our strength. We have 70% less power consumption than the competition, double the output per hour, we have up to 94% less dust, and our blade lifecycle is up to 10 times longer. These values are so far away from what you see in the mainstream market - the results are speaking for themselves.
2. What do you think are the main technology developments in plastic recycling machinery at the moment?
Digitalisation, allowing the machines to ‘speak’ with each other. I am absolutely sure that the next big stage is artificial intelligence (AI). I am also working on that in order to deliver better values: less power consumption, more output. Granulators are a simple product, but offering them correctly is not so easy because you have millions of designs, hundreds of different plastics, completely different handlings in different companies. I think AI will help bring the chaos into order.
There aren’t many developments in the granulating process, for decades we have known how the process is done: you have a turning rotor with blades. It is not so easy to improve this, it’s a proven process that works well. But with digitalisation, you can go deeper. We have learnt so much in the past 15 years, we now recognise that what we thought was the right approach in the past was wrong. Now with digitalisation, AI can measure, get data, recalculate, and we can see we were sometimes mistaken. We have an external team working on building AI software to preform those calculations and we hope to implement it in our machines by next year’s K Show.
3. Do you think European countries will meet recycling targets by 2030?
No. I don't see the possibility on the political side. When I hear the problems a lot of recyclers have, for example competition with very cheap virgin plastics or imports, recycling not bringing enough income, then I don't know who will do the recycling in the next year or two years. The EU has the European Green Deal, but I don’t feel its impact. The targets are fast approaching, and the last five years were very stressful for nearly all companies. We are still in a crisis and the industry needs investment to keep recycling going. But that money is missing. To fulfil the Green Deal by 2030, the EU needs to invest more money and put different rules in place.
4. What level of demand are you seeing from chemical recyclers?
I deal with both mechanical and chemical recyclers. The chemical recyclers love our machines because we have some key features - I told you already about the output and the throughput – but we didn’t yet talk about the end result. The flake or the regrind is the most important thing and how that looks like dictates the quality of your next product. For example, we are very successful with the wet grinder for PET because our flakes stay flat. What is required for mechanical and chemical recycling is exactly the same: the quality of the process depends on the regrind. It’s not just about the dust, it’s about the design and structure of the grind itself. It needs to have sharp edges because that is better for transport, for dosing, for melting. Getting all those small steps right results in a safer and more stable process after our granulator is done with its job. That is why we serve both mechanical and chemical recyclers. We do see chemical recycling growing over the years, particularly driven by purchases of big machines. At the moment, we serve around 80% mechanical recyclers and 20% chemical recyclers.
5. If you had to pick one sustainability trend that will drop off the agenda by 2030, what would it be?
Times change so fast, that is a really hard question. I also find it hard to predict that will stay important in the coming years. The one thing I’m confident will continue being important is automation. We have less and less skilled people on the ground, so machines will have to take on more of the work, and hopefully even repair themselves in the future. I also hope that in the next 10 years we dramatically reduce ocean plastics and bring them back into the loop through recycling.