The recycling and environmental services firm Interseroh, headquartered in Cologne, Germany, has opened a new centre of competence for recycling plastics in Maribor, Slovenia. The company says the center will highlight how modern plastics recycling works and how the efficient use of plastics is being researched and worked on.
Taking part in the grand opening ceremony were Professor Maja Makovec Brencic, the Slovenian minister for education, science and sport; Eva Štravs Podlogar, the general director of internationalisation of the Slovenian Ministry; and Dr. Axel Schweitzer, chairman of ALBA Group’s board of directors.
Interseroh’s new centre of expertise seeks to bring together its research and development activities in the area of plastics recycling for the first time.
“At our new location we can service all of our customers’ requirements surrounding the production of modern recycling plastics ourselves,” says Manica Ulcnik-Krump, Interseroh’s manager of research and development, recycled-resource. “This allows us to achieve a greater degree of flexibility and independence in product manufacturing, while for customers, the periods of development are significantly reduced.
“Thanks to our geographical location in the city of Maribor in Slovenia, we can also provide the optimum logistics coverage for both the German market and the entire Eastern European market.”
In a news release announcing the opening, Interseroh, a subsidiary of the ALBA Group, notes that over the course of its long-standing research and development work, it has created an upcycling process for plastic scrap from the collections from the German dual system that it calls Recycled-Resource. Through this process, high-tech sorting of the plastic is followed by recompounding, encompassing the extrusion, restabilising and reconstruction of the molecular structure as well as the chemical modification with the addition of additives in order to achieve the precise plastic characteristics that are required by the customer.
The end result of the process is high-quality, customized plastic granulates, including the recyclate Recythen, which is suitable for the production of technical items, films or pipelines, the company says.
Interseroh adds that the recycled plastic Procyclen, also manufactured with the help of Recycled-Resource, is just as impact-resistant, rigid and heat-resistant as primary granulate on a crude oil basis. The material can also be used in blow moulding to produce liquid detergent bottles, among other materials.
Additionally, Interseroh claims that Procyclen is superior to new materials in terms of its raw material, energy and climate protection balance.