Plastic bottle and container manufacture Plastipak (Plymouth, Michigan / US; www.plastipak.com) is investing around EUR 30m in its subsidiary LuxPET (Bascharage / Luxembourg; www.luxpet.com). EUR 25m will be spent on a new facility to produce preforms from recycled PET. The remaining EUR 5m is earmarked for a new company – Plastipak Packaging Development Europe – which will bring together the company’s European R&D in Bascharage.

LuxPET was established in 1998 and acquired by Plastipak in 2005. It currently has around 100 employees and produces around 2 bn preforms a year for PET bottles for Benelux, Germany and France. The present investment will create 40 jobs in the next three years.

Plastipak is a technology-based company with 22 locations worldwide. It has a strong focus on the US, but also has facilities in Brazil, Argentina and Europe. Alongside LuxPET, its European operations are located in the Czech and Slovak Republics and Italy. Sales are currently over USD 1.5 bn. Plastipak is aggressively expansive and last year acquired two Italian preform facilities from Mossi & Ghisolfi – see Plasteurope.com of 17.03.2008.