Thanks to a new EUR 9m joint venture with Coca-Cola Enterprises France (CCE, Issy-Les-Moulineaux; www.coca-cola-entreprise.fr), APPE (Wrexham / UK; www.appepackaging.com) will raise output at its PET recycling facility in Beaune / France by 70%. The packaging business of La Seda de Barcelona (LSB, Barcelona / Spain; www.laseda.es) did not specify when the added capacity – some 20,000 t/y of food-grade PET – would come on stream, merely saying that once complete, the site would be able to turn out 48,000 t/y of “SuperCycle” PET.

Part of the money will go towards installing a new SSP tower from Bühler (Braunschweig / Germany; www.buhlergroup.com) in Beaune that will allow APPE and CCE to trial new recycling techniques. The announcement comes after several investments undertaken by APPE at the site, including EUR 10m in new equipment in 2010. The LSB subsidiary said that aside from a continuous development of its PET food grade recycling capacity, the joint venture underlined its strategic objective to develop materials, preforms and containers with a lower carbon footprint.

CCE said the initiative would help it achieve its goal of reducing each beverage’s carbon footprint by one-third by 2020 – see also Plasteurope.com of 15.05.2012.