PET recycler MultiPet GmbH, which, since 2017, has been part of environmental service provider Veolia, produces PET flakes from waste PET bottles and trays for the plastics processing industry.
The company’s recycled PET product is suitable for a variety of applications, ranging from fibres for nonwoven applications, beverage, detergent and other bottles, packaging and strapping sheets.
MultiPet and its sister company Multiport, a producer of recycled HDPE compounds, operate as one company with two complementary core business activities. Both are considered important suppliers of secondary raw materials for the plastics processing industry.
Increasingly, too, the industry is depending on high-quality recyclate from trusted suppliers in order to be able to comply with the targets for recycled content in packaging.
To ensure it can deliver the quality required, MultiPet has chosen to work with the sorting systems developed and produced by Germany-based Sesotec, one of the leading specialists in contaminant detection and materials sorting.
MultiPet receives pressed bales of pre-sorted PET waste. After the bales are broken up, plastics are first checked for impurities, then ground into flakes and intensively washed. This is followed by a two-stage density separation process involving two rounds of hot washing, during which the Flake Purifier + multi-sensor sorting systems developed and supplied by Sesotec separate discoloured materials, foreign plastics and metals from the flakes. These high-throughput units are designed especially for use in plastic flake processing.
The systems used at MultiPet are equipped with multiple sensors for colour and material recognition. This enables MultiPet to produce PET flakes in batches of different colours and qualities. The technology means that the loss of good material is kept to a minimum, said Herbert Snell, managing director of MultiPet GmbH – “making our sorting process even more efficient.”
In addition, Sesotec supplied a turn-key material handling system including steelwork platforms and material conveyance systems, simplifying integration into the overall configuration.