Erema sees strong demand for high-volume PET systems

Ansfelden, Austria-based plastics recycling and reprocessing equipment maker Erema Group says its Vacurema machines, which can recycle up to 6 metric tons of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) per hour, are in high demand globally for bottle-to-bottle recycling applications.

“While the bottle-to-bottle market initially tended towards 3-metric ton machines, over the past three years we have been seeing increasing demand for PET recycling solutions with throughputs in excess of three metric tons per hour,” says Christoph Wöss, business development manager for the bottle segment for Erema.

The company says a dozen Vacurema machines with throughput capacities of from 4 to 6 metric tons have been installed and commissioned worldwide since 2020.

“Together, these large recycling machines produce almost 350,000 metric tons of recycled-content PET (rPET) per year, which is a clear sign that this order of magnitude is now commonplace in the industry,” Wöss says.

Erema says even at high throughputs, its technology “achieves impressively efficient decontamination and gentle intrinsic viscosity (IV) treatment and fulfils the strict requirements of the European and North American food safety authorities.”

According to Erema, even a “basic version” of a Vacurema system can produce food-grade rPET, while an additional upstream vacuum treatment “enables direct connection to preform production, or the material is processed inline into sheets or fibers.”

“This versatility allows users to react flexibly to changes in the market and fluctuations in demand, an important advantage in a dynamic market environment,” Wöss says.

He says beyond versatility, expanded capacity also is on the minds of equipment buyers. “In several markets, like Latin America, there is a clear trend towards larger PET recycling machines. We expect the market to develop this way in China too, to meet the increasing demand for high-quality rPET suitable for sensitive applications such as food packaging,”

Erema is exhibiting at the Chinaplas 2025 event next month in Shenzhen, China, and Wöss says he expects to find interest in Vacurema systems. “For Chinese recyclers, the bandwidth and flexibility of the Vacurema and Vacunite systems offer great potential for a wide variety of applications.”