As demand for recycled PET rises, brands are turning to waste sources that would previously not have been considered. To keep pace with this development, Fimic has steadily worked to create new filter solutions that can handle the challenges posed by these more contaminated PET waste streams.
Polyethylene terephthalate, more commonly simply called PET, is widely used world-wide in many different applications. Light, strong, durable and safe, PET offers a number of advantages over other commonly used plastics. Its performance and recyclability make it one of the more sustainable choices among packaging materials. PET, both virgin and recycled, is food-contact approved throughout the EU, as well as many other countries, although its applications go far beyond food packaging alone.
PET is a popular choice in sectors that run the gamut from the beverage, pharmaceutical and medical industries to clothing and the automotive branch. 70% of carbonated soft drinks, fruit juices, dilutable drinks and bottled water containers are made from PET.
PET can be recycled nearly infinitely, and because it can be reprocessed into new, high-quality products, it also lowers the need for virgin PET. The carbon footprint of recycled PET products is up to 90% smaller than conventionally produced products from virgin PET. PET, therefore is an import enabler of the circular economy.
Feedstock competition
There is, however, another side to PET’s success story. Over the past few years, increasingly, major brands – traditionally heavy users of PET packaging – are being held accountable for the carbon footprints of their products and operations. Mitigating actions, like packaging redesign and light-weighting, have been implemented by many, aimed at driving down their virgin plastics consumption and increasing reusability. Minimum targets for the use of recycled content have been set. The implementation of these and other measures has been fuelled by the looming new regulations and taxes on packaging , single use and otherwise – in the EU and elsewhere. The result has been an increasingly heated competition for available rPET.
New capacity
Rising rPET demand and prices are incentivising investments in new recycling capacity. Europe has seen a 21% increase in the installed capacity for PET recycling, according to a report by Plastics Recyclers Europe, PETCORE Europe, Natural Mineral Water Europe (NMWE), and UNESDA Soft Drinks Europe. At the same time global rPET capacity is forecast to boom over the next five years.
This ‘run’ on rPET has led producers of PET packaging products - both food contact and non-food contact applications - to look for new feedstock sources, instead of relying on hot-washed bottle flakes only. This has, inevitably, led to the use of more contaminated PET waste streams.
It is a development that Italy-based melt filter expert Fimic has to some extent anticipated. The company’s melt filters are recognised as among the best for use with contaminated post-consumer plastics. To achieve high quality recycled plastics from more contaminated waste streams, automatic technologies are needed to filter out impurities and contaminations from the melt flow. Fimic has been working many years to improve its filtration technologies in order to be able to continue to meet and satisfy the needs – in terms of quality, different materials - of recyclers, and to expand its technology to applications that previously did not require the use of continuous scraping melt filters ‘such as, precisely, PET’, the company pointed out.
Continuous scraping filters prove their worth
FIMIC has already installed two RAS-type scraping filters on PET recycling lines designed to handle more contaminated PET waste streams - PET lumps from petrochemical waste, or strapping production waste, which can consist of both fibers and PET straps.
In such cases, the contamination level of the input material is way higher than the typical ‘ppm’ contaminations used for food grade applications, even reaching levels as high as 5%. The benefits and the advantages of a continuous scraping filtration were significant. In the first project, the RAS filter was installed as a pre-filter (applied filtration was 150 or 120 microns on laser screen); in the second project, it was the only filtration step (applied filtration was 80 microns on laser screen). The output performances were excellent: respectively 2,000 kg/h and 700 kg/h, at very different and sometimes inconsistent iV levels.
Not just PET
Fimic has also seen an uptick in the number of units installed for the recycling of soft PVC . Its melt filters have been found to be ‘a winning choice’ for PVC, said the company. The sensitivity of PVC during the recycling process mean care is needed: these filters allow the material to flow without stagnating and therefore without degrading. The company is also continuing to work on developments for recycling this material. Fimic is currently also testing an alternative solution for hard PVC - one of the most degradation-sensitive as well as the stiffest material in the recycling market.