• Solutions

Solutions for recycling

Making material flows profitable

Sorting material streams is key to high-quality recycling.

How can raw material recovery and compliance of recycling rates be combined with attractive profits?

The challenges facing recycling companies are constantly increasing due to legal and contractual requirements. Recyclers have to make major contribution to achieve the legal recycling rates for packaging - and in future also for textiles - while at the same time producing high quality secondary raw materials.

But high quality packaging, for example to protect food products from spoiling too quickly, are made up of multiple plastic layers with a high PET content. These multi-layer trays cannot be mechanically recycled using the established technologies. They currently have to be incinerated, which incurs charges.

Fashion textiles provide the greatest challenges due to their material mix. Only around 15 percent of used textiles collected are re-used as second hand clothing with the rest ending up in landfill or incineration. Mechanical recycling that conserves the resources is currently not possible.

Creating value instead of consuming it

Our revolPET® technology offers a flexible and efficient solution for the challenges of packaging and textile recycling. Our method enables the selective solution of the PET content of hard to recycle materials made of mixed plastics. The remaining film constituents or other materials can then be sent for further processing using mechanical methods with no problems.

Identical product properties of polyester and PET allow the treatment of waste polyester textiles using the revolTEX® method. This method also selectively recycles the polyester fibres. The recyclability of other materials such as natural fibres is not impaired, offering the opportunity to send them to further treatment.

This supports an important objective in packaging and textile applications: We turn a value consuming material flow into a value creating material flow and thus make a significant contribution to resource conservation.

Solutions for brand and packaging manufacturers

Close material cycle for multi-layer packaging

Chiller cabinet material mix: Product features determine packaging diversity.

Quality multi-layer packaging is particularly attractive for protection of high value branded items preserves the product qualities for a long time.

How can this complex packaging be integrated into recurring raw material cycles? For products in the food industry, it is extremely important that thermo-formed trays and films have a consistently high quality. Thus recycled materials have to fulfil current standards – without exception.

Responses for post-consumer plastic

Manufacturers of branded cosmetics, food and cleaning products are being challenged by consumers and environmental initiatives alike. They need to look for and find responses for future generations. Protecting the environment calls for efficient solutions in post-consumer recycling (PCR) for:

  • Multi-layer packaging
  • Coloured and opaque packaging

Our revolPET® technology selectively dissolves PET from high-performance packaging. Likewise, coloured or opaque PET packaging materials can be dissolved and the colour pigments isolated. In collaborative projects, we supply brand manufacturers with the information they need to enable them to reliably meet their enhanced product responsibilities.

If you are a brand manufacture, we can support you in achieving your commitments:

  • Meeting recycling rates for packaging products
  • Increasing the recycled raw material content in packaging
  • Providing reliable data on recycling for your life cycle assessment

For your life cycle assessment

Our revolPET® technology obtains high quality PET monomers from PET packaging, which can be re-used in the production of new PET plastics. This sets new standards in terms of economic efficiency and environmental protection.  

Saving more than 45 percent on CO2 emissions compared to monomer production from crude oil is a strong argument for your life cycle assessment. It enables you to sustainably upgrade your environmental footprint.

And: You will be setting new standards with support from a pioneering, sustainable recycling technology.

Solutions for the textile and fashion industry

New life for polyester textiles

In the textile industry, mixed fabrics containing polyester are extremely important. They sum up to a market share of 60 percent. Use of polyester fibre is particularly popular in fast fashion, sport and outdoor clothing. It is added with a mix of substances such as colours and additives to improve the product’s properties for the consumer. However, this makes effective recycling with state-of the art applications more difficult or even impossible.

Dyes and additives pose a major challenge for textile recycling.

A way out of the recycling trap

Plans by the EU Commission include imposing disposal and recycling responsibilities on the textile industry. And the challenge is clear: Today, more than 80 percent of textiles, particularly mixed textiles with polyester content, cannot be recycled.

Creating cycles together

With our revolTEX® method, we offer the textile and fashion industry an economically efficient and sustainable solution for the recycling of textile waste:

  • Post-consumer
  • Post-industrial

It involves selectively dissolving the polyester out of the textile mixtures. Integrated cleaning processes remove impurities caused by other textile materials, colours or additives.

In collaborative projects, we provide brand manufacturers with the necessary information they need to reliably meet their enhanced product responsibilities. We support them in meeting their commitments in terms of recycling their textiles and the use of recycled raw materials in the new products.

Major benefit

revolTEX®, our textile recycling method, scores particularly high when it comes to economic efficiency and environmental protection: A saving of over 45 percent CO2 compared to monomer production from crude oil is a strong argument to update the textile life cycle assessment (LCA).

Your involvement with a pioneering, sustainable recycling technology sets new standards in textile recycling. It is a powerful indication when brand manufacturers meet their enhanced producers’ responsibilities.