Starlinger has provided its IV+ technology to South African bottler Extrupet for use in the company’s new bottle-to-bottle polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycling plant.
The Coca-Cola bottler will use the new equipment to produce PhoenixPET – a recycled PET (rPET) brand approved for Coca-Cola products – at the company’s Wadeville facility in Johannesburg. The plant is the first in South Africa to use Coca-Cola-approved technology to produce bottles for carbonated soft drinks, making the country the first in Africa to use rPET for Coca-Cola products.
The 3,000 square metre plant – opened last month – has a production capacity of 1,800kg per hour and will supply 14,000 tonnes of rPET resin every year to the PET packaging industry in South Africa and neighbouring countries. It will divert an additional 22,000 tonnes of post-consumer PET bottles from landfills each year and create income opportunities in PET bottle collection for an estimated 15,000 people, Starlinger said.
The Austrian company’s RecoStar PET IV+ technology ensures the production of virgin-like rPET suitable for direct food contact, and has been approved by national and international authorities such as the Food and Drug Administration and European Food Safety Authority. The systems have a total name plate capacity across the world of more than 450,000 tonnes every year.
Extrupet joint managing director Chandru Wadhwani stated that the project was first conceived three years ago when its existing capacity was approaching its limit. A choice had to be made with regard to which technology to adopt for a new plant, as well as what capacity. After extensive investigation of the various options available, which also involved several site visits in Europe, Extrupet chose Starlinger for their track record of setting up plants that were actively supplying the Coca-Cola system around the world.
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