Equipment and technology company Sesotec (formerly S+S Separation), based in Schönberg, Germany, says it is helping develop solutions for identifying and sorting marked polymers as a member company within the European Commission (EC) three-year Polymark consortium and project.
The project, funded by the EC, was kicked off in June of 2014 under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) scheme. The mission of the project is to increase the availability of recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) for the production of new beverage containers. According to the EC, Polymark members are working to develop a technology for the automated detection and sorting of usable PET bottles.
The EU-funded project has a budget of €2.2 million ($2.35 million), of which the EU has contributed close to €1.5 million ($1.6 million).
According to Sesotec, Polymark aims to maximize the value from recycling and the re-use of PET while meeting EU rules on the re-use of food contact and non-food contact PET. The company says the technology it is developing will distinguish between food-contact plastics and non-food contact plastics, aiming to further optimize the high-value plastic scrap stream and ultimately create a more valuable use of these materials.
Consortium members include Petcore Europe, the European Federation of Bottled Waters (EFBW), the European Association of Plastics Recycling and Recovery (EPRO), 4PET Recycling BV and Closed Loop Recycling Ltd. Research and technology partners also include ColorMatrix, Fraunhofer Institut IPMS and Pera Technology Ltd., in addition to Sesotec.