Alpla (Hard, Austria; www.alpla.com) has officially inaugurated its new extruder at the Italian recycling site of Anagni (see Plasteurope.com of 27.01.2021). The packaging manufacturer has invested around EUR 6.5 mn in the construction of the extrusion facility for food-compatible PET recyclate from post-consumer material. The plant has a capacity of 13,500 t/y. Until now, it had been possible to process around 50,000 t/y of PET at the site. “We buy PET flakes from used household packages from local recyclers, and process them into foodstuff-compatible regrind material. This is then used at the site for the production of preforms,” a company spokesperson told Plasteurope.com last year. In addition to the 90 or so employees currently working at the site, 12 more will now be hired.

The packaging manufacturer, which has been headed since 1 January 2021 by Philipp Lehner, is heavily driving the global expansion of its recycling activities. At the beginning of 2021, the packaging group announced that it would invest an average of EUR 50 mn a year in the further expansion of its reclaim activities up to 2025 (see Plasteurope.com of 24.02.2021). Above all, Alpla plans to internationalise the measures for recyclate material in order to close material cycles in as many regions as possible. Overall, the annual capacity of the Alpla recycling companies, joint ventures, and cooperation partners amounts to around 203,000 t for rPET and 74,000 t for rHDPE.

Related: Alpla announces the acquisition of German recycler Texplast

Alpla employs around 22,100 and produces packaging systems, bottles, caps and closures, and injection-moulded parts at 177 sites in 45 countries. The group operates recycling facilities in Austria, Germany, Poland, Mexico, Italy, and Spain. Annual sales amounted most recently to EUR 4 bn.