PET bottle and preform manufacturer Resilux (Wetteren / Belgium; www.resilux.com) has announced a cooperation with recycling company RCS (Werne / Germany; www.rcs-entsorgung.de). According to the agreement, RCS will collect PET bottles for Resilux throughout Germany. A company spokesperson did not want to give any details about the expected quantities, because the process is still in the development phase.

Although the two companies speak of “one hundred percent traceability”, a manufacturer-specific separation of PET bottles collected from deposit machines and containers is not (yet) technically possible at present. However, since all further steps are in the hands of RCS and Resilux from the moment the material is taken over, it will be possible to trace where the bottles come from and, above all, where and how they are processed. From the collected material, RCS will produce recycled food-grade flakes and regranulates, which Resilux will process into new preforms and bottles. The mixing ratio of recycled material and new material will be determined by the customer, for example, whether to use 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% recyclate. On 1 October 2017, Resilux acquired the PET recycling activities of Signode Industrial (Glenview, Illinois / USA; www.signodegroup.com) in Weinfelden / Switzerland.

For Resilux managing director Marcel van de Sande, the achievement of a closed material cycle demonstrates “the power of PET as a unique, versatile and above all, environmentally friendly packaging raw material.” RCS managing director Alexander Rimmer said the cooperation with Resilux proves that the overall concept – from waste collection and recycling of PET bottles to PET preforms for the food and beverage industry – works.

In autumn 2019, RCS announced an investment of EUR 9m in the production of regranulates for the food and beverage industry, in addition to its business of PET flakes for the non-food sector.