ALPLA Group has inaugurated its first polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycling plant in Romania with its joint venture partners, Romania-based Ecohelp and Swiss United Polymer Trading AG (UPT).
The Austrian packaging firm and its partners have designed the plant in nine months with an investment of around €7.5m.
Located in Targu Mures, Romania, the plant has a capacity of around 18,000 tonnes of recycled material per year from household waste.
It supplies food-grade post-consumer recycled PET (rPET) to the southeast European market to support a circular economy in the region.
The joint recycling plant, which will create around 20 new jobs, is situated adjacent to the existing Ecohelp site in Targu Mures.
ALPLA procurement and sales recycling business development director Georg Lässer said: “The growing importance of local recycling processes calls for increased commitment in the region.
“Together with our partners, we combine strengths, increase the processing quality of the recycled PET material and ensure the long-term supply of the southeast European market.”
ALPLA said that the facility has a single extrusion line for the production of high-quality rPET granulates from PET flakes. It also has the potential for expansion for which the plant has space for a second extrusion line, which would double the capacity.
Founded in 2021, the joint venture will combine the experience of the packaging firm as a recycling expert and packaging producer with UPT’s distribution network for plastics and recycled material.
Furthermore, Ecohelp supplies the material in the form of rPET flakes based that it produces from post-consumer PET bottles. The resulting food-grade rPET granulate will be used to make preforms and bottles.
The Austrian firm is planning to invest €50m per year until 2025 to expand its recycling operations. ALPLA is encouraging comprehensive recycling in as many regions of the world for the creation of high-quality recycled materials.
Currently, the annual production capacity of Alpla’s recycling companies and partnerships around the world total 203,000 metric tonnes of rPET and 74,000 metric tons of recycled high-density polyethylene.