Gruppo Hera's (Bologna / Italy; www.gruppohera.it) waste treatment and recovery subsidiary Herambiente has advanced its piecemeal acquisition of plastics waste collection and recycling specialist Aliplast (Treviso / Italy; www.aliplastspa.com) – see Plasteurope.com of 18.01.2017. In December 2017, Herambiente purchased an additional 40% of the Treviso-based company's shares for EUR 51.8m, bringing its total shares to 80%. The remaining shares are planned to be purchased in June 2022.

With the majority stake, Aliplast's governance has been changed accordingly, including enlarging its board of directors from five to seven members. The new board has appointed Carlo Andriolo and Roberto Alibardi as CEO and chairman, respectively. Aliplast recycles about 80,000 t of plastics waste annually. It employs approximately 350 people at its five sites in Italy as well as one facility each in Spain, France and Poland.

In other group news, Hera's bioplastic subsidiary Bio-On (Bologna; www.bio-on.it) has announced it will have a supply of clean electric energy to its biopolymers plant. With a EUR 2.4m investment, group subsidiary Hera Servizi Energia is planning the new "technological-energy" hub that will include a 1 MW trigeneration power plant, two steam boilers, two industrial coolers and a water treatment plan.

The biopolymers plant will produce polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) – see Plasteurope.com of 06.01.2017 – and is currently being built nearby Bologna in Castel San Pietro Terme, with a EUR 15m investment. It is due to start production in mid-2018, and employ approximately 40 people. The plant will have an initial capacity of 1,000 t/y of PHA polymers, which the company says is expandable to 2,000 t/y. PHAs are produced from agricultural waste, such as molasses, sugarcane and sugar beet syrups.