Model Group to invest in carton recycling plant in Switzerland

Model Group, a Switzerland-based packaging firm, has announced plans to invest 35 million Swiss Francs (US$35.2 million) to build a material processing plant that will target drink cartons and other papers that do not easily dissolve in water.

Commissioning for the plant is scheduled for the first quarter of next year, after which the company will fine tune the operations for roughly three months. When fully operational the plant is expected to process about 75,000 tonnes of drink cartons and water insoluble paper per year.

Model says that the investment is part of its long-term strategy. In view of the declining quality of available recovered fiber, coupled with rising technical quality requirements in the packaging industry, Model says it faces the challenge of finding new raw materials that will maintain and even improve the quality of its containerboard.

To remedy this, Model decided to expand its existing technical potential to enable the recovery and recycling of raw materials that would otherwise have to be incinerated. Following the recycling process, the raw material will be used to produce containerboard products.