Erema to exhibit at NPE2018

Plastics recycling systems manufacturer Erema,  Ansfelden, Austria, says  plastics recycling in the USA has never shown as much potential as it does today in light of the significant reduction of postconsumer plastic scrap imports by China, the growing circular economy movement and the ambitious targets of major brands to increase the amount of recyclate used in manufacturing their products and packaging.

“If I had to describe the current situation of the plastics industry in the USA in just one word, 'dynamic' would probably be the most appropriate,” says Martin Baumann, vice president of sales for Erema North America, which is based in Ipswich, Massachusetts.

However, unlike plastic scrap, high-quality recycled pellets still can be exported to China, representing a potential opportunity for plastics recycling in the USA and Canada, he says.

For this reason, Erema North America has added an Intarema TVEplus with Laserfilter to its Technical Centre for customer trials, especially of postconsumer materials with a high degree of contamination. This system typically processes film waste with paper labels from commercial waste or washed film from curbside waste to make film-grade pellets, the company says.

An Intarema T 1108 will be in action at the Erema booth, W1249, during NPE2018, May 7-11 in Orlando, Florida. The unit will process clean low-density polyethylene (LDPE) production scrap directly and without preshredding to make high-quality recyclates, the company says.

Trade fair attendees also will receive information about the Erema melt filters directly from the Erema business unit Powerfil, which will be represented at NPE for the first time. The filter systems also are available as individual components for extrusion plants from other suppliers.

Additionally, Erema will provide details on the world's first rPET (recycled polyethylene terephthalate) Inline Preform system at its booth. SIPA, a leading manufacturer of PET packaging solutions from Italy, joined forces with the company to develop a flexible, direct processing solution to make food-contact-compliant preforms from rPET flakes in a continuous process. For PET processors, the system has economic and ecological benefits: energy savings, lower logistics and process costs and higher profitability, Erema says.  

“Plastics recycling is more an opportunity than an alternative with regard to sustainability and against the backdrop of increasing prices for landfilling,” says Mike Horrocks, CEO of Erema North America. “The focus of our technical developments lies quite clearly on increasing the quality of recyclates. It is precisely for this reason that we have developed the new ReFresher anti-odor technology, which enables us to open up completely new application opportunities for plastics recycling.”