Nöm completes reycled bottle cycle
Austrian dairy Nöm has been working on further development of its rPET bottle. Until recently, the label on the bottle had to be removed using a perforated tear-off so that the sorting machine in the recycling plant could correctly recognise the material. However, a new recyclable label makes it possible to avoid that, using a technology called EcoFloat-Sleeve.
PET is the most recycled plastic packaging material in Europe. However, obtaining good quality PET flakes for reuse is a challenge.
In the recycling plant, the bottles are separated by colour, pressed into bales depending on the colour, and crushed into PET flakes. These are then placed in a water bath, but not only for intensive cleaning, but due to the difference in weight, the particles sink or float at different heights in the water and can thus be skimmed off from each other depending on the material.
A buoyant, low-density polyolefin material is the answer to the riddle. The polyolefin flakes in the new EcoFloat sleeve find their way into the correct material flows in the recycling plant. PET flakes of the best quality are kept separate from the sleeve pieces and are then returned to the recycling cycle, the company says.