In the first six months of 2014 PET to PET Recycling Österreich (Müllendorf / Austria; www.pet2pet.at) says it has recycled 420 million PET bottles and has thus reached a record volume of more than 10,500 t of PET bottles and could be well on its way to setting a new annual record when December rolls around. In 2013 the total volume of PET recycled material broke the 20,0000 t barrier for the first time with a final tally of approximately 20,167 t of recycled PET – see Plasteurope.com of 22.01.2014.

Having completed expansion steps in the previous year which included the installation of new recycling facilities, PET to PET is now investing in a logistics optimisation in Müllendorf which the company says will improve on the current "bottle-to-bottle" cycle. The entire investment comes to roughly EUR 2.3m and includes the expansion of the operational area with a new hall and additional silo production plants. With the new areas, the company has now replaced its old external warehouse, reducing transport time and now has all of its processes at a single location.

The Austrians are convinced they can reduce 8,200 km of drive time or about 347 t of CO₂ annually. The company also says customers will soon realise benefits from the optimisation investments. Consisting of twelve individual silos, the newly installed silo production facility will not only help to improve the process flow at PET to PET, but a portion of the recyclate will now be loaded onto silo transporters and directly delivered to customers. "We now have everything we do in a single place and all of our lorry deliveries and stock transfers are going to be more flexible and more practical to run," noted company head Christian Strasser.