Suzhou Oude Science&Technology Co.,Ltd

The company has started several new programs to spur recycling among consumers.

When it comes to Coca-Cola and recycling, the soda giant says it wants to re-use as much as possible.

Millions of Coca-Cola’s signature red, white and silver cans and bottles are sold every year to thirsty customers around the world – but where do they ultimately end up? Thanks to the beverage giant’s comprehensive recycling initiative, a vast majority of them still have use long after the last drop of cola is gone.
 
The Coca-Cola Company – along with Coca-Cola Enterprises, the company’s largest US bottler – has embarked upon a series of aggressive initiatives including the world’s largest bottle-to-bottle recycling facility, a public education program and new plant-based bottles that are fully recyclable.
 
Target 100 Recycling Program
 
Ranked #1 in the food and beverage industry in Newsweek’s Green Rankings, Coca-Cola is making good on its promise to maximize its use of renewable, reusable and recyclable resources, with the goal of recycling the equivalent of 100 percent of its product packaging by the year 2020.
 
The company set a few initial goals: avoid the use of 100,000 metric tons of packaging, recover or recycle more than 90 percent of materials at its production facilities and increase recycled content in plastic bottles by 10 percent – all by the year 2010.
 
So how are they doing? So far, Coca-Cola has made strong progress on these goals, as revealed in its 2009 Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Report, upon which much of this article is based.
 
World’s Largest Bottle-to-Bottle Recycling Facility
 
In January 2009, Coca-Cola opened an enormous bottle-to-bottle recycling facility in Spartanburg, South Carolina that will produce about 100 million pounds of food-grade recycled PET plastic each year, about the equivalent of two billion 20-ounce Coca-Cola bottles.
 
“The opening of the Spartanburg plant, coupled with our investment in recycling businesses, programs and a new marketing effort, underscores our belief that our packaging has value and we want it back — both for our own supply chain and to support the myriad of other uses for recycled aluminum and plastic,” said Sandy Douglas, president of Coca-Cola North America, in a press release.
 
The “Give it Back” Program
 
Gathering recyclables to transform into new products at its Spartanburg facility is only one part of Coca-Cola’s recycling efforts. Convincing customers to recycle those bottles and cans in the first place is just as crucial to helping the company meet its Target 100 Recycling Program goals.
 
“That Coke in your hand right now belongs to you,” states a message on Coca-Cola’s “Live Positively” website. “You bought it, you’re drinking it, it’s yours. The inside, that is. But the outside? We’d like that back.”
 
Coca-Cola has been active in ensuring that customers have plenty of chances to give back the bottles. The campaign has placed recycling bins at college campuses and sporting events around the country, including Major League Baseball games and NASCAR races.
 
Coca-Cola PlantBottle
 
Even with all of these successful recycling efforts, the plastic bottles used to package Coca-Cola products are still made from a non-renewable and less than eco-friendly material: petroleum. But in 2009, that changed as Coca-Cola introduced its “PlantBottle”, made with up to 30 percent plant-based materials.
 
For now, PlantBottles are made through a process that converts byproducts of the sugar-making process into a key component for PET plastic, but Coca-Cola plans to experiment with other plant-based materials as well.
 
Independent analyses of the bottle’s life cycle have shown that the PlantBottle reduces carbon emissions by up to 25 percent, compared with petroleum-based PET.
 
And where do these bottles go once empty? They can be recycled, too. According to Coca-Cola, their PlantBottle can be processed through existing manufacturing and recycling facilities, unlike other plant-based plastics.

A new report from Swiss consulting firm SRI Consulting suggests that the yield from PET recycled bottles is 50 per cent or more, meaning that placing the bottles into landfill may lead to a lower carbon footprint.

According to Eric Johnson, a research analyst at the Zurich-based consulting company, recycling is not the most efficient way to handle waste management of PET bottles. He added that firms needed to examine all the plastics collected. Author of the report PET’s Carbon Footprint: To Recycle or Not Recycle, Mr Johnson outlines the carbon footprint of processing the PET’s in recycling facilities.

During an interview, Mr Johnson said that recycling only makes sense if it is decreasing the carbon footprint of the material. He continues saying that for every 100 tonnes of PET collected, there must be at least 50 tonnes to come back and be placed in other products. According to Mr Johnson, that is not the nature of the PET recycling industry making it useless to recycle from an environmental and economical standpoint.

He also said that countries with adequate landfill space and not much recycling infrastructure are better off sending the plastics to landfill because that is the lower carbon option. Both the National Association for PET Container Resources and the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers declined to leave any comments regarding the report, which came out on 9 August.

The report analysed PET bottles’ carbon footprint by following the material from production of raw materials straight to disposal of the product and the secondary packaging from birth to end of life. Based on the evaluations, Mr Johnson concluded that the best kerbside recycling programmes for such materials were found in Europe, but that it was still not enough yield to justify recycling over sending the bottles to landfill. Mr Johnson said that the biggest issue is that kerbside recycling collects a lot of the material, but that very little is actually recycled once it is sorted and separated.

Clear Path Recycling, LLC (CPR), the PET recycling joint venture company established by Shaw Industries Group, Inc. and DAK Americas LLC, has announced that it began processing operations in July.

Created to produce Recycled PET (RPET) flake PET bottles, CPR will bring the first phase of its Fayetteville, N.C. facility to full capacity in the fourth quarter of this year. The formation of CPR was announced in April 2009.
Shaw and DAK will be the primary users of the recycled RPET Flake in their respective polyester based products including carpets, fibres and resins. The remaining product will be sold for merchant use. The inventory build-up of waste bottles to be recycled is well underway with approximately 20 million pounds (9072 metric tonnes) of inventory being maintained.

By the end of the first phase of the project, the operation will have the capability to recycle up to 160 million pounds (72,575 metric tonnes) of PET bottles, which will save over 550,000 cubic yards (420,505 cubic metres) of landfill space each year. The energy savings related to the Clear Path Recycling operation will save over 1.4 trillion BTUs (410 GWh) of energy annually, which is equal to the amount of primary energy necessary to power over 10,000 U.S. homes per year, according to Energy Information Administration data.

Future plans for the facility would increase the recycling rate to 280 million pounds (127,000 metric tonnes) or about 5 billion bottles per year. “The start-up of the facility is a milestone for CPR and it’s parent companies in their Sustainability initiatives of reducing environmental impact while creating a viable product for use in their product offerings,” according to Ron Salati, Vice President, CPR.

The KREYENBORG Group (Muenster, Germany) are pleased to announce that they will be hosting a unique Polyester Extrusion and Recycling Forum event at the Novotel Hotel, Newcastle Airport on Wednesday 29th September 2010.

The United Kingdom has one of the most dynamic and rapidly evolving polyester extrusion and recycling industries in Europe. In recent years there has been a total transformation as the UK PET industry has evolved, from a sector with few facilities and low collection rates, to its current status. Investments have been made in collection systems, post consumer bottle sorting and washing facilities. This coupled with strong consumer demand for packaging containing recycled rPET has led to the development of the packaging, bottles, strapping tape and recycling industries.

KREYENBORG Group have recognized that there is a complete absence of any local conferences dedicated to this important sector of the plastics industry, and have set about rectifying the situation. We will be inviting all the major processors and re-processors that are involved with PET bottle flakes to get together with fellow industry professionals at this unique event.

KEY FACTS ABOUT THE EVENT

• The event is the only UK based conference in 2010 dedicated to the Polyester Extrusion and Recycling industries.
• Key industry professionals from a Broad Range of Businesses are invited to attend a one day conference with Leading industry figures presenting highly topical KEYNOTE Speeches
• High importance is being placed on providing ideal conditions for industry professionals to network and to ‘ask the experts’ for advice on a wide range of subjects relevant to extrusion processing and recycling of post consumer PET bottles.
• Further details or to register online for the event please visit www.polymermeeting.com

For further information please visit www.odemade.com

About the KREYENBORG Group:

The Kreyenborg Group is one of the leading suppliers for components and systems for the plastics and recycling industry.

With more than 50 years of experience in mechanical engineering and plant construction, countless patents and thousands of machines currently in use all over the world, we have gained the technical leadership in many market segments.

Since it’s foundation, the Kreyenborg GmbH has been family owned, as well as the management has been predominantly remained in the hands of the Kreyenborg family.

Our status as a family business is reflected in our company’s philosophy. „Made in Germany“ – a quality attribute which is based on traditional values. At Kreyenborg, we act upon these values, so our customers can always depend on us in terms of reliability, punctuality and quality.

The company is now operated by the managing directors Jan-Udo Kreyenborg and Jan-Hendrik Ostgathe in second and third generation.

The Brazilian firm Unnafibras Textil Ltda. announced plans to build a plastic bottle recycling facility in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The company currently operates three production facilities in Brazil (Alhandra, Santo Andre’ and Sao Paulo). At the present time, the company has a total production capacity of 3,600 tons of flake and 3,000 tons of plastic fiber per month.

The project cost is estimated at approximately $58 million, with roughly $23 million of the money to be used to build the PET bottle-to-bottle recycling project and for the new high-value line of production of fibers, and $35 million to be used to purchase secondary shares from the owners.

The International Finance Corp., a part of the World Bank, will provide about $13 million in equity financing on the project, while additional equity of around $28 million will be provided by DEG, Stratus, Proparco and Grupo Ecos.

The project will increase Unnafibras’s capacity with the construction of a new fiber production line and expand its PET recycling activities. The expansion plan will allow the company to convert PET bottles to food-grade recycled PET resin. The recycled PET will then be sold to local soft drink bottling companies in the country.

The investment also will go toward a project for a new production line of high value-added fibers; and the debottlenecking and expansion of the company’s main production site in the Sao Paulo area.

The project is pending approval by the IFC’s board.

On July 21, St. Helens will hold a public forum about the planned state-of-the-art ORPET plastic bottle recycling facility.
The forum will cover bidding information for local contractors, as well as employment information for unemployed county residents. The meeting will take place at City Hall at 265 Strand St. in St. Helens.
The first of its type in the region, the recycling facility will convert millions of plastic bottles (PET, or polyethylene terephthalate) collected each year through Oregon’s Bottle Bill into materials for manufacturing, construction and packaging.
The facility will be built on Port of St. Helens-owned land at the Multnomah Industrial Park (58144 Old Portland Road). There have been delays from the original planned groundbreaking dates, but now the Port says construction is expected to begin later this summer.
The ORPET facility is a public-private partnership between plastic-industry veterans Dennis Denton and Tom Leaptrott, and the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative, which is tasked with facilitating the state’s bottle bill.
The partnership first announced plans to build the facility last fall.

TRENTON — The state Department of Agriculture will collect plastic pesticide containers for recycling program at three South Jersey locations, Secretary of Agriculture Douglas H. Fisher announced.
 
The department will have 21 separate collection days April through November at collection sites in Hammonton (Atlantic County), Deerfield (Cumberland County), and Woodstown (Salem County).
 
“We have seen an increasing interest in recycling agricultural materials, especially plastic pesticide containers, in recent years,” said  Fisher.  “This recycling program offers pesticide applicators and businesses a free, easy and responsible way to dispose of these containers that once would end up in landfills.”
 
Last year’s collection exceeded the amount collected in 2008 by 111 percent. To date, more than 115,000 pounds of plastic pesticide containers have been kept out of the landfills.
 
Launched in 2002, the program, a cooperative effort between the Department, the Atlantic County Utilities Authority, Helena Chemical, Cumberland County Improvement Authority, Salem County Improvement Authority, and the Salem County Board of Agriculture, collects plastic pesticide containers from all categories of New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection licensed pesticide applicators and custom application businesses.
 
Among the uses for the recycled plastic are fence posts, pallets, underground utility conduit, speed bumps, parking stops, marine pilings and field drain tiles.
 
All three collection sites also will be accepting clean cardboard since the pesticide containers are distributed in cardboard boxes.
 
In addition, the Department offers year-round mulch film and drip irrigation tape recycling and has information on recycling nursery pots, plastic flats, trays, and cell packs.

Plastic could be recycled continually without any waste, after a breakthrough was made by scientists.

The material weakens so much on recycling that after its original use for packaging or containers, it is often sent to landfill.

Researchers from Stanford University and IBM used ‘organic catalysts’ to break down polyethylene terephthalate plastic to its building blocks, while maintaining its original strength – allowing it to be recycled once again as bottles and containers.

According to lead researcher Chandrasekhar Narayan, the discovery has already led to new projects which could result in recyclable plastics being on the market within the next two years.

The innovation could have a substantial impact on the UK government’s recently-announced targets for reducing the five million tonnes of household packaging waste created in the UK annually.

Several household names committed to the government’s second phase of a long-term plan to reduce packaging waste potentially saving eight million tonnes from landfill by 2020.