August 2020

The polyethylene (PE) recyclate that facilitated this innovation is Mersalen®, produced by APK AG, Merseburg (Germany). APK’s solvent-based Newcycling® technology generates Mersalen® from complex polyethylene / polyamide multilayer film waste that is difficult for most conventional recycling processes to recycle. ‘The quality and purity of our LDPE recyclate shows properties close to virgin plastics and is suitable for a wide range of packaging applications’, says Florian Riedl, APK AG’s Director of Business Development.

Smurfit Kappa was approached by Patani Global Food B.V., a global supplier of fresh and frozen foods including vegetables, meat and fish and non-food products for the catering industry. Patani Global Food B.V. ships goods from Amsterdam to worldwide locations including to the Antilles Islands in the Caribbean using EPS boxes. However, a rise in the amount of litter that was washing up on the idyllic beaches in the region had led to a future ban on plastic waste so the company wanted an alternative solution that would not harm the environment.

The use of recycled plastic has only recently been rendered mandatory in various regulations worldwide – in quite different ways and at different times, but the trend is unambiguous: the use of recycled PET for containers has been rising, as has the demand for it. So we in the Plastics Technology Division at Krones AG have also been devoting our attention for years now to recycled PET (or rPET for short) – here, the focus is on the resultant container: our clients’ product.