As of 1 August 2021, plastics recycler Aage Vestergaard Larsen (AVL, Mariager / Denmark; www.avl.dk) has had a new boss. Palle Ladefoged Kristiansen, previously CFO and a member of the management board, took over the position of CEO as part of a change in leadership that had been planned for some time. Kristiansen succeeds Franz Cuculiza, who had been at the helm of the company since 2012.

Kristiansen has been working for the company since 2014, initially as CFO. Since 2017, he has also been responsible for the human resources and IT divisions.

The Danish recycler was founded in 1972 by the person whose name is still the company’s: Aage Vestergaard Larsen. It regranulates, grinds and compounds common thermoplastics such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene and PET, and engineering plastics such as ABS, polyamide, POM and PBT. The company is still family-owned: the founder’s daughter, Gitte Buk Larsen, serves as the head of board of directors and marketing.

Among the innovations at AVL is a new line expected to be launched in this autumn that will process post-consumer waste into higher quality recyclates with a throughput capacity of 4,000 t/y. Gitte Buk Larsen has named the new line “Pippi”, based on children’s book character, Pippi Longstocking. “I learned from my father that all machines must have a name,” she says. “And when we started the project to build a production line for household-sorted plastic, there were some who shook their heads and said it wouldn’t work. Hence, the name.”