New PET recycling facility sets standards

The new plant in Bilten has been established by Poly Recycling AG, a subsidiary of Resilux AG, as was reported in a press release from PET-Recycling Schweiz. The facility officially went into operation on Wednesday at an event attended by Marianne Lienhard, deputy governor and head of the department of economic and home affairs of the canton of Glarus, and Cornelia Rotzetter from the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN).

The plant reportedly sets new standards “when it comes to safety, quality and traceability in the production process”. This is where the Solid Stater comes in, which is being used for the first time in Switzerland. Unwanted substances in the food-approved material recycled PET (rPET) dissipate in this process and can be filtered out. “Swiss rPET has been of flawless quality for many years. The Solid Stater enables us to permanently improve the technical properties of recycled material to be on a par with new materials,” said Casper van den Dungen, General Manager at Poly Recycling AG, in the press release. The resultant rPET can be used to make thinner, lighter bottles, which reduces the material requirement and has greater benefit to the environment.

With this new facility, PET recycling in Switzerland has been secured long term, PET-Recycling Schweiz reports. The collection of used bottles is the deciding factor. “Only through separate collection, sufficient consumer collection volumes and state-of-the-art technology will it be possible to manufacture rPET to the required quality,” said Jean-Claude Würmli, Managing Director of PET-Recycling Schweiz