Often impaired with household waste such as meat residue, dairy and crumbs or industrial grime, soft plastics need thorough cleaning and decontamination processes to make them viable for extrusion and valuable for high-quality end products.
PE and PP films are vital for the correct and safe delivery of food and goods from production and packaging to logistics. As such a valuable resource, we cannot let them become waste. In Europe, recycled film plastics are increasingly sort after to reach mandated recycled content and meet consumer demands for safe and sustainable packaging.
Creating high quality films through effective wash plants can help address low market values in Australia, one of the roadblocks for circular soft plastics highlighted by the APCO 2020 Roadmap.
The nature of soft plastics - folding and trapping contaminants and moisture - makes them particularly challenging to wash.
Thanks to the washing and grinding plant manufactured by SOREMA, customers are able to recycle polyethylene films coming from industrial and post-consumer collections. This Film-to-Film recycling plant contributes to the reduction of plastic pollution, "zero waste", and within the circular economy reduces energy and water consumption, producing a high quality secondary raw material, suitable to be integrated in high percentages in multiple original production of blown films, cast and stretch films.
Success Story: SOREMA installs Film-to-Film Wash Plant for High Percentage Reuse
In Europe, the growing demand for high quality material from post-consumer waste led PPHU Anna Recycling, Poland, to search for a quality partner to work with in order to develop a post-consumer polyethylene film recycling project.
SOREMA Film-to-FiIm line was selected thanks to its modular designed, able to guarantee compliance with the highest specification required for the production of PE/PP flakes coming from stretch films, cast films, as well from agricultural and post-consumer films, raffia and jumbo-bags. SOREMA offers systems with an output for film recycling starting from 600 kg/h up to 3000 kg/h.
The SOREMA’s Film-to-Film recycling line includes the most advanced technical solutions, such as the low speed and high torque Single Rotor Shredders PR Series, the Prewashing System with a high friction module and the Prewashing Centrifuge to process a wide range of contaminated materials.
In the Prewashing System, the wet grinder reduces the film to a size that guarantees the best yield with a limited production of PE fines. Subsequent washing, drying and extrusion operations benefit from working with a constant feeding, from reduced material size, resulting in a significant final reduction in energy and water consumption. During the grinding process, the machine generates high friction on the surface of the material by opening and removing a huge amount of contamination due to the high mass flow of water.
At the end of the line, there is a fluff storage to feed an extruder with a dehumidified material to produce high quality pellets.
We show here the PPHU Anna Recycling plant in Europe - an example the wet grinding module based on three components:
MU920PRH wet-grinder with rotor ɸ 850 x 2000 mm for size reduction of material and high friction in water.
Dewatering screw SCW30 for conveying the material to the washing centrifuge (not visible in the photo)
Washing centrifuge WCE2000 to remove the smallest contamination
This solution offers a better quality of polymer recycling than others based on a single dry shredder, in terms of greater cleanliness, less wear and tear on machine components.
Thanks to Sorema Line, the plants productivity grew beyond all expectations, reaching an output up to 1,000 kg/h of perfectly decontaminated and granulated material at a competitive quality/price ratio.
The material obtained is then suitable for the extrusion on the blown films lines of the company located in Poland and abroad.
Among the processors that use this material, is a company producing an innovative three-layer polyethylene film based on 100% recycled material from post-consumer and post-industrial waste, thus closing the cycle of circular economy.
LEARN MORE ABOUT SOREMAS WASH PLANTS HERE.
CEMAC technologies partners with SOREMA in Australia and New Zealand. For more information on plastic wash plants and machines, contact us on (03) 8400 6066 or submit an enquiry form.