Herbold, Erema install plastics recycling plant in Bulgaria

Herbold Meckesheim GmbH of Germany, in cooperation with Austria-based Erema, has designed a plastic recycling and extrusion plant for Poligroup GmbH in Bulgaria, which has been in operation since September 2013. The plant produces recycled film from postconsumer, agricultural and commercial plastic scrap.

 

The system is fed with a mix of film including LDPE film from the agriculture industry, LLDPE from commercial sources and postconsumer film from sorting facilities. 

 

The Herbold washing line comprises preliminary size-reduction and pre-washing of the film, followed by hydro-cyclone separation designed to separate heavier plastics from lighter polyolefin plastics. Herbold says it is the only company in the field of wet film recycling to use the hydro-cyclone separation step. 

 

The company says the film washing line transforms agricultural films and films from supermarkets into recycled material that can be used for the production of bin liners, protective sheets and construction foils made from 100 percent recycled plastic. 

 

According to Herbold, one advantage of the plant is its ability to handle highly contaminated as well as extremely thin-walled film. The company says the plant provides washed homogeneous high-quality film flakes that are ideal for further treatment in an Erema extrusion system.

 

At Poligroup, the washed and recycled film flakes are treated with Erema’s TVEplus plastics extrusion system, which features a laser filter and die-face granulating system. According to Erema, the extrusion system is optimized for difficult-to-process materials such as mixed postconsumer film with a high percent of residual humidity and contamination.

 

With the plastics recycling systems by Herbold and Erema, Poligroup is able to recycle the washed film flakes (from LLDPE stretch agricultural film and LDPE industrial waste) into high-quality granulates. The Erema plant also features a multifunctional cutter compactor with patented air flush module that offers cutting, homogenizing, heating, degassing, densifying, buffering and dosing in a single process.

 

“The system also stands out through its easy handling and long service life of the wear parts such as filter screen and pelletiser knives,” observes Nikolay Tomov, production manager with Poligroup GmbH, of the Erema system.

 

Herbold manufactures hydro-mechanical recycling plants for plastic film with throughput between 500 kilograms per hour up to 3,000 kilograms per hour.