Most shrink-sleeve labels pose challenges for PET bottle recycling, but recycling-friendly innovations were recently recognized by the Association of Plastic Recyclers. | Jared Paben/Resource Recycling, Inc.
Three shrink films for PET bottles and a collection of label inks have passed recyclability reviews by the Association of Plastic Recyclers.
NRT is currently producing about 75 mask comfort products a day, with the first 300 to be delivered to Nashville hospitals May 6. | Courtesy of National Recovery Technologies (NRT).
Normally, NRT’s 3D printer is busy producing parts for optical sorters and other recycling machinery. But amid the pandemic, the company is also using the technology to make mask straps that help out health care workers.
If EVOH is used at too high of a level in an HDPE container, it can damage the quality of the recycled HDPE. | Koray Akar/Shutterstock
An innovation is allowing natural HDPE bottles containing higher levels of EVOH to be recycled into pellets that are free of yellowing, gels and specks.
Coperion K-Tron’s feeder can be used for both loss-in-weight feeding to continuous processes and loss-in-weight batching direct to batch blenders. | Courtesy of Coperion K-Tron
The variability of recycled plastic streams doesn’t just present challenges in terms of extruding and molding products. It also complicates the feeding of plastic into compounding equipment.
The EWS 60/210 shredder is designed for high-volume applications. | Courtesy of Herbold Mecksheim.
Herbold Meckesheim USA has released size-reduction equipment tailored for plastics recycling.
Tomra Sorting developed Sharp Eye because the percentage of thermoforms in PET bottle bales has been increasing. | Courtesy of Tomra.
PET thermoforms bring special baggage to the recycling process: Optical sorters often fail to differentiate them from bottles, and thermoform flakes are more prone to breaking into fines.
A pelletizing and melt delivery equipment company opened a lab in North Carolina, and a U.S. thermoforms company begins using sheets from resin made partly through a PET depolymerization process.
The resealable stand-up pouch pictured here can be recycled alongside 100% polyethylene films at stores. | Courtesy of The Kellogg Company.
A Kellogg’s brand has begun using a pouch with an additive that compatibalizes its EVOH barrier layer and PE film during recycling.
Kal-Polymers installed a customized line at its 110,000-square-foot Flowery Branch, Ga. plant. | Courtesy of Kal-Polymers
Kal-Polymers is spending up to $4 million to install an integrated processing line, which is boosting PP recycling capacity and allowing the firm to handle higher levels of contamination.
The FDA recently approved a recycling process that allows post-consumer HDPE at up to 100% in new products including milk and juice bottles. | Val Lawless/Shutterstock
Erema Group got the go-ahead to use its technology to recycle HDPE into food and drink packaging and foodservice wares. Meanwhile, other companies got federal green lights for PET recycling.