London, UK – Klöckner Pentaplast (kp), a plastics manufacturer of food trays, has worked with the German Plastic Packaging Industry Association (IK) to create a successful pilot project for the closed-loop recycling of Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic food trays.

Nobert Adamzyk (Sites Managing Director and Operations Manager in Germany) and Berthold Tiefensee (HSHEQ Manager for North-West Europe) from kp in Ritterhude, Germany, managed the pilot project and Mr Adamzyk said “We have shown that we really can close the loop for plastic food trays, turning them into new recycled plastic trays. This offers a viable option for dealing effectively with what has always been a very challenging post-consumer waste stream.” This successful outcome represents an important step forward for sustainability.

In cooperation with a manufacturer of optical sorting facilities, members of the IK Working Group leased a sorting line. Clear mono-PET trays were first extracted from 30 tonnes of mixed PET fraction. They were subsequently ground up by a German based PET recycling company Multipet, then washed and converted into recycled PET (rPET) flakes. Finally, kp processed the rPET flakes into rPET film, and converted the film into new trays.