German recycler Multipet (Bernburg; www.mp-bbg.eu) and packaging producer Paccor (Zell / Germany; www.paccor.com) are working together to manufacture new PET trays out of used ones on an industrial scale. This collaboration follows a pilot project set up by Multipet parent company Veolia (Paris / France; www.veolia.com) and German plastic packaging industry association Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen (IK, Bad Homburg; www.kunststoffverpackungen.de), which tested the process ordinarily used for PET bottles – see www.veolia.de/multipet – in Veolia’s packaging waste sorting plant in Nordhausen / Germany.

From mixed PET grades, the bottles were first separated from the trays. The process then sorted out monolayer PET. Multipet then used this to produce flakes, which were in turn used to produce trays.

With the cooperation of Paccor, industrial scale recycling of monolayer trays is imminent. The Nordhausen sorting plant is currently in the process of being optimised in order to improve monolayer PET sorting.