At a site in Ennshafen, Austria, local firm Altstoff Recycling Austria (ARA, Vienna; www.ara.at), Germany’s Duales System Holding (DSD, Cologne; www.gruener-punkt.de) and Austrian environmental technology and railway logistics specialist Bernegger (Molln; www.bernegger.at) are jointly building a sorting plant for lightweight packaging.

The plant is to have annual sorting capacity of some 100,000 t, making it reputedly the largest line of its kind in Austria. The EUR 60 mn plant is scheduled to come online in 2025.

The joint venture thus marks an important step towards attaining the EU recycling targets for 2025. Austria needs to double the amount of plastics packaging it recycles by then, and the country cannot meet the target with its current 15 facilities and their sorting capacities of between 1,000 and 30,000 t/y.

Related: Packaging collection in Austria at a constant level

“Sorting plants play a key role in recycling: they determine what is available by way of raw material,” ARA CEO Christoph Scharff said. “This is why, together with Grüner Punkt [DSD] and Bernegger, we have taken the decision to construct a state-of-the art facility.”

His simple equation is 80 times 80 times 80. Collect 80% of all packaging, sort out 80% for recycling and achieve an 80% yield during recovery. The target of a 50% recycling rate can then be achieved for plastics packaging.

ARA reports that Austria is today at 58% times 58% times 78% – with a recycling rate of 25%. Bernegger plans to transport as much of the waste and recyclate as possible in a climate-friendly manner, namely by rail.