Italian plastics machinery specialist Amut (Novara; www.amut.it) and Austrian recycling technology specialist Erema (Ansfelden; www.erema.com) will demonstrate a new bottle-to-packaging process at the "Plast 2018" (www.plastonline.org) trade fair being held from 29 May to 1 June in Milan / Italy.

Post-consumer PET bottle flakes will be processed in the demonstration plant to make food-contact grade thermoforming sheet in a single stage. The plant directly combines "Vacurema" recycling technology with Amut’s inline sheet production, meaning the pelletising stage is eliminated.

As a result, food-contact grade thermoforming sheet can be made from 100% post-consumer PET bottle flakes, without the slightest amount of virgin material added, explained Michael Buchberger, sales manager for the bottle sector at Erema. Commenting on the technology, Amut’s president, Piergianni Milani, said "unbeatable" arguments driving the trend towards direct food grade PET processing include energy savings as well as lower logistics and process costs leading to higher profitability.

Amut said that the monolayer thermoforming sheet produced from pure rPET is not only 100% food-contact compliant, it also fulfils US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations and European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) guidelines.