Two big brothers for Starlinger’s well-proven recoSTAR family

Starlinger recycling technology has increased line capacities: recoSTAR PET 330 for post-consumer PET recycling, and recoSTAR universal 165 with the focus on hard-to-grind material and voluminous waste with specific processing requirements.

recoSTAR PET 330: More than 27,000 tons per year of rPET for B2B applications

For some years now the capacity per installation required on the market has been continuously rising, especially in countries with large populations and/or high collection rates. Washing line producers have already responded to this increase with higher throughput/output rates; now it is time for the extrusion lines to draw level with them. Larger lines are also more efficient because the operating expenses are comparatively lower and they deliver a higher ROI.

Because customers had been asking for larger production capacities, Starlinger recycling technology has introduced the HC (High Capacity) feature already in 2006 as a first step towards capacity increase and thus gained 25 % more output without changing the extruder diameter. Now it was time for the second step: The aim was to develop a recycling line that can produce more than 27,000 tons of bottle grade rPET per year, primarily rPET pellets with virgin-like characteristics. Further requirements included FIFO for excellent product properties and uniform treatment of flakes and pellets, full automatisation and easy maintenance during production, process control and parameter documentation for traceability, and energy saving production.

Proven extrusion system x 2

After generating ideas and comparing several solutions, the decision was to use existing and well-proven Starlinger technology: For the recoSTAR PET 330, two 165 mm single-screw extruders are mounted parallel on a main frame, while the upstream and downstream equipment is adequately sized so that only one predrying unit, filter and pelletizer are needed for the two extruders - which, in turn, helps to keep the cost of the entire line down.

The advantage of using two single-screw extruders instead of one large extruder is the low technology and process risk: the chosen extruder size has been installed many times successfully in the past. Also, the availability and procurement time for the components are known, and compared to a line with one very large single-screw extruder, the machine footprint remains very compact.

Recycled content for the 2012 Olympics in London

The first recoSTAR PET 330 HC was sold in 2011 and delivered beginning of 2012 to Continuum Recycling in Hemswell, Lincolnshire, the joint venture company formed between Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) and British plastics recycler ECO Plastics. It is in full operation since May 2012 and produces the rPET that CCE is using in its PET packaging in Great Britain as a part of its sustainability programme, and has also produced the recycled content in the Coca-Cola PET bottles on sale during the London Olympics 2012.

The second line has been sold to Visy Industries Australia Pty Ltd, one of the largest Australasian recycling companies based in Melbourne, and the third recoSTAR PET 330 is under construction right now and will be delivered in January 2013.

327,850 t installed PET recycling capacity per year

The first recoSTAR PET lines were designed to produce an average output of around 5,000 t of rPET per year mainly for food contact packaging. Between 2004 and 2010 Starlinger recycling technology installed 22 PET recycling lines with an overall rPET capacity of more than 175,200 t/y (approx. 8,000 t/y per line). The 11 new installations sold in 2011 and 2012 alone will have nearly the same capacity - namely 152,650 t/y (almost 22,000 t/y per line).

recoSTAR universal 165: Challenging applications require great performance

For recycling pre-shredded and washed material (post-industrial or post-consumer), the market offers a great variety of large recycling units. For plastic waste that is voluminous, hard-to-grind and with specific processing requirements due to type and amount of contamination, however, the available solutions are limited or non-existent at all. While constructing a recycling line especially for such applications might seem expensive at first glance, the increased output capacity achieves economy of scale and brings down both the production costs and capital expenditure per ton.

Bulky plastic waste - a hard nut to crack for recyclers

Starlinger has installed over 100 recoSTAR universal lines for a variety of applications in the past years, ranging from clean in-house waste to washed and dried post-consumer waste, from light-weight film to hard-to-grind injection moulding parts, from fiber bales to woven and non-woven fabric. Based on this know-how and experience, the aim was to develop a recycling line with a production capacity of up to 10,000 tons/year suitable for processing a wide scope of thermoplasts in almost all conditions. In addition it should be possible to add e.g. calcium carbonate powder for compounding, or PET bottle flakes for improving the viscosity of PES filaments.

After a considerable number of tests with different shredder types, the final machine design and concept were ready beginning of 2011. While the recoSTAR universal 165 is able to handle all sorts of waste difficult to process, it maintains the core advantages of the recoSTAR universal system: flexible modular design, operator and maintenance friendliness, efficient material preparation, feeding control for consistency and process stability, and constant high pellet quality.

The first unit was sold in 2011 and is in production with excellent results after the final acceptance test. By the end of 2012 three more units will be installed and operating.