Post-consumer PET bottles make up the majority of recycled plastic. The largest consumers of PET resin have all committed themselves to incorporating 50% or more percent of recycled content into their PET bottles. There are two barriers to these goals: the lack of post-consumer PET and the lack of recycling infrastructure. It can be expected that recycling rates will be pushed to much higher percentages from where they are today, and the industry will follow with substantial investments into recycling plants. The outlook for business is phantastic!
Our washing plant starts with PET bottle bales. The bales are opened, and the contents are separated. This initial step also removes small debris like stones to save the sharpness of the grinder blades.
From there the de-baled bottles may go through an initial bottle sorter or to a first washing line. This step depends on which application the flakes will be used. If flakes are to be used for bottle-to-bottle applications, up to 3 sorting machines may be necessary. This also depends on the quality of the postconsumer bottles.
After the initial sorting the bottles are being ground, washed, possibly sorted again, then go through a caustic wash. Labels and glue are removed in this step and the flakes are further cleaned. At some point the enter a floating tank where the heavy PET sinks to the bottom while the lighter HDPE and PP parts from the closures float to the top and are skimmed off.
After a metal separator the washed flakes are dried and filled into bags.
Flakes quality is distinguished by the presence of contaminants in parts per million:
- -<250 ppm is used for polyester fibres and strapping
- <100 ppm is used for PET sheet that can be used for food.
- < 50 ppm is used for bottle-to-bottle recycling.
The layout of the line is determined by the quality of the post-consumer bales and the intended application for the flakes. Our team will propose a detailed plant layout once we have all the input parameters. Our lines offer the most cost-effective solutions for you intended application.
