Come nasce una bottiglia in PET riciclato

The observer will be careful if he is sure that he is in contact with his members and that he is part of the PET plastic bottle of Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite and other products that have not been in the stature of their transparency personal my plumbeo of the best autumn days. “They are made with recycled PET (rPET) and I can confirm that the one I run here in Gaglianico, near Biella, is one of the most advanced production facilities in the world”, assures the director of the structure Stefano Lorenzon. Between the aisles of a supermarket usually plastic bottles and they pick up the differences in size, size and label, but certainly not the material used for construction. The certainty is that plastic passes to plastic, a beautiful life. Therefore, my use of Gaglianico is the protagonist of an emblematic story of circular stability.

“We don’t buy hot-washed PET flakes, but we put them in hot-washed PET flakes, and we put them in hot-washed PET flakes. They are sold in a variety of ways, such as. supermarkets and supermarkets ., milk centers, bottlers, etc. And in this way we are sure to have a quality raw material”, explains Lorenzon. Please keep the same weight of small plastic material, and in the heavy bag, which is attached to the processing, it is designed to be in a bag weighing 700 kg. There is a regulated road with physical and chemical regulations: I blocked the split part, but the photo ends almost completely. “Yes, we actually make preforms that we then fill with drinks”, emphasizes Lorenzon.

A preform is an object that you can’t help but turn in your hands in the time of understanding how it can become a bottle. It resembles a test tube (or perhaps an old valve) of generous dimensions with a ribbed edge for quick capping. However, the dimensions and weight vary in relation to the type of bottle you see. The 20.7 gram version is for the 450 ml bottle, while the 28.8 gram version is for a liter bottle, and it’s cozy. “The transformation is almost immediate. The preform is heated to 105 °, mechanically stretched and pressed at 40 bar to adjust the standard size. If it passes it must be a millimeter thick. The final passage is what the introduction of the liquid is “. However, the grammar has undergone changes: from the year ’90 a bottle of due weight weighed 56 grams, or 44 grams, about 30 percent less.

Coca-Cola HBC Italia has five stable footprints in Nogara, Oricola, Marcianise, Fondi del Vulture (Lilia and Sveva) and Roccaforte di Mondovì (Lurisia). Gaglianico is the only supplier of rPET preforms and this year the minimum requirement is 750 million units. “The magic comes here, in which reactor,” he points in the direction of stability. “My first example is its fundamentally different path. And really, this is avant-garde. No one in the world, therefore inside and outside the Group, boasts such a plant with such compact dimensions. In practice, we collaborate on the refinement of the machinery with a Austrian company. An organization that allowed me to start more than 30 years ago. I think I was the best of fifty specialists in the team. The PET test requires the care of a first machine that uses a laser to determine the fluorescence index at a speed of 100 thousand units per minute. In this way, it is possible to detect impurities and carefully remove PVC or other materials that are in the melting process that can generate negative pollutants. Please note that it proceeds with the washing process to point the polymer in the desired structural direction. “Started with crystallization and then drying, perched moisture is a great enemy of the process. We must obtain an adequate viscosity otherwise we risk obtaining a material that does not retain the CO2 of the vande”, points out Lorenzon.

When the temperature reaches 300 °, it contributes to the “stripping” of the enemy components (a decontamination) and causes an extruder if there is a kind of plastic spaghetti that immediately becomes sticky. “Proceed to a subsequent crystallization during the transformation of the material from transparent to opaque, which makes an aromatic component emerge if it contains acetaldehyde. Odora di frutta, non è pericoloso per consumatori, ma può alterare la percezione delle drinks and then we reheat to remove.” The final solid material is rPET in pellet form, small in millimeters in diameter. “At what point in time a continuous cycle of 24 or 24 and 7 days of 7 pellets comes and goes and if there is a resin that comes into being in a mold that makes it end at 128 preforms at a time”, concludes Lorenzon . The investment plan of 30 million euros has reached a minimum payment of one year, but it is one year and planned to store the first preform completely ready.

Because in addition to machinery, certifications, standards imposed by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), compliance with standards, logistics and the entire bottling network must be considered. Please notice in Italy when you start to see the possibility of making hot washed PET flakes in a very attractive way. “Now we are in the normalization phase and in fact, to make a proportion, a ton of traditional plastic costs around 1000 – 1100 euros per ton, while the PET flakes recovered around 800 – 900 euros per ton, a year ago they inexplicably went to 1800 euros”, underlines Lorenzon. The stability of Gaglianicu is really an example of a recovery because at the beginning of the era it turned into disuse. 18 thousand square meters have been interrupted for 8 years and the diamond point of the Group is 70 percent less CO2 emissions than those produced by PET. More than 100 percent of the electrical energy comes from the renewed font.

But what happens to rPET bottles? “The rice, to turn on, must be a new bottle. It should be noted that the initial analysis of the flakes takes place around 5 – 6 percent of the material, but it also does not come with it. stationery, who knows. There is a new sensitivity in dealing with the environment. And we transform waste into something precious.”