Austrian plastic packaging manufacturer Alpla (Hard; www.alpla.com) said it and two partners are investing a total of EUR 7.5m in the construction of a recycling plant in Targu Mures / Romania. The joint venture PET Recycling Team Targu Mures brings together Alpla, Romania’s Ecohelp (Targu Mures), and United Polymer Trading (UPT, Kreuzlingen / Switzerland; www.uptag.ch), each of which is investing equally for the installation of an extrusion line at the Romanian partner’s site that is to recycle post-consumer PET bottles from households.

The goal is to make 15,000 t/y of food-grade, post-consumer PET recyclate for the production of preforms and bottles, something expected to contribute to strengthening the local material cycle in Central and Southeast Europe.

The three partners bring different skill sets to the venture: the Austrian packaging manufacturer serves as a recycling specialist and a preform and bottle producer, Ecohelp provides raw material in the form of PET flakes, and UPT is co-owner of the Cumapol Polyester Upgradinges rPET upcycling plant in Emmen / The Netherlands (see Plasteurope.com of 22.01.2019) and specialises in trading plastics and recycling materials. The investment in the plant and associated buildings and infrastructure amounts to around EUR 7.5m. In the course of the facility expansion, 15 new jobs are to be created in Targu Mures.

The joint venture was signed by the parties on 9 September 2021 and is subject to competition law approvals. Production is set to start in mid-2022.

At the beginning of 2021, Alpla, which announced turnover of EUR 3.69 bn in 2020, said it would invest an average of EUR 50m a year in the further expansion of its recycling activities until 2025 (see Plasteurope.com of 24.02.2021). The main plan is to internationalise the measures for high-quality recyclates to close material cycles in as many regions as possible. Total annual capacity of Alpla’s recycling companies, joint ventures and co-operations is quoted at around 130,000 t/y for PET and 60,000 t/y for PE.

In the future, all developments in the area of biodegradable packaging solutions will be combined under the newly founded brand “Blue Circle Packaging” (see Plasteurope.com of 20.07.2021). The core here is formed by materials made from renewable raw materials.