Earthquake-proof, role model facility

In October 2018, US-based rPlanet Earth opened a ‘one of a kind’ integrated PET bottle and food packaging recycling plant in Los Angeles. Now company founder and ceo Bob Daviduk and his team aim to roll out the concept across the US and beyond, with four other plants ‘at least as big as the LA facility’.

*This article was published in our 2019 July/August edition

In the morning rush hour it is 40 minutes by Uber to Vernon, a 14 km2 industrial area south east of downtown Los Angeles. Vernon is home to a broad mix of companies and industries, and among the newcomers is plastics recycler rPlanet Earth.

A 28 000 m2 state-of-the-art facility, rPlanet Earth is considered to be a major boost for plastics recycling capacity in southern California.

‘In a nutshell, what comes in here at the gate as crushed and baled PET bottles and other plastic packaging scrap, goes out as 100% recycled, new bottle preforms, extruded sheet and thermoform packaging,’ says rPlanet Earth founder and co-ceo Bob Daviduk, an enthusiastic entrepreneur with a background in business finance.

‘Let’s start from the start,’ he continues while guiding me to a huge, roofed, platform behind the facility, where hundreds of PET bales are piled up, waiting for further processing.

SHOCK RESISTENT

More than US$ 100 million (EUR 90 million) was invested in smart technology flown in from all over the world and in the construction and design of the rPlanet Earth building. Not to mention the foundations below and around the plant. ‘You may not realise this is earthquake country,’ says Daviduk. ‘We are practically sitting on top of the San Andreas fault.’

To prevent severe damage from future quakes, an extra two-metre thick layer of concrete has been added to the foundations, a precaution often required by investors and insurance companies.

A TICKING BOMB

In California, the risk of an earthquake is always lurking. The most powerful quake to rattle the state in 20 years happened only this year, on 4 July – Independence Day.

According to several studies, the San Andreas fault has reached a sufficient stress level for an earthquake of magnitude greater than 7.0 and the risk of major damage is currently believed to be concentrated on the southern section of the fault, which includes Los Angeles…

ALL SOURCED LOCALLY

So why build a US$ 100 million facility in the middle of an extremely sensitive quake zone? ‘Obviously, here are the markets, here are the volumes,’ says Daviduk.

With nearly 40 million people, California has more than 10% of the US population, of which more than half live in the greater LA area. ‘So there is consumption and there are big scrap volumes,’ Daviduk explains.

‘All of what we process here is sourced in southern California. Also, California has good (state) collection systems and laws which of course help develop a proper recycling infrastructure.’

HUGE POTENTIAL

The rPlanet Earth facility can process up to 38 000 tonnes of food and beverage packaging per year, meeting growing demand for ‘a much-needed’ domestic processor of US recovered PET.

There is indeed a huge PET recycling potential waiting to be explored. Each year, in the USA alone, some 2.7 million tonnes of PET is produced, of which 29% is collected. Only 150 000 tonnes, or less than 20% of the 800 000 tonnes of collected PET bottles is going into new bottles, according to Daviduk.

TOWARDS MORE RECYCLING

‘Very few facilities do PET,’ he says. ‘Given that the beverage industry has set ambitious goals towards use of recycled content in their packaging, it is crucial to expand recycling capacity,’ he argues.

‘A big player like Nestlé wants 100% recycled material in their packaging by 2025, Pepsi aims for 35%. But to get there, you simply need better collection systems, more plants and advanced technology.’

FROM SCRAP TO PREFORMS

The LA plant offers a closed-loop process, taking PET bales and converting them into bottle preforms, extruded sheet and thermoform packaging.

rPlanet Earth’s director of maintenance and engineering Andrew Lopez takes me on a tour of the immense halls: ‘It’s exciting to be involved in a pioneering project and start-up operation,’ he says while passing the first sorting lines.

CEAN, CLEANER, CLEANEST

The plant interior reveals a series of sorting, washing and decontamination lines. Krones of Germany supplied a bottle-grade flake production system, including the Bulk Handling Systems’ (BHS) front-end bottle sorting system. The BHS purification system processes more than six tonnes of baled post-consumer PET an hour and runs nearly 24/7.

Material undergoes extensive separation and cleaning procedures, grinding the plastic into flakes and washing and decontaminating the scrap input. This raises the intrinsic viscosity of the material in accordance with end-use requirements. The result is food-grade sheet, thermoformed containers and injection moulded preforms for bottles.

TECHONOLOGY FRONTRUNNER

Five NRT optical sorters with In-Flight Sorting technology remove metals, mixed plastics and coloured PET. ‘We only want colourless PET,’ says Lopez.

The Max-AI AQC-2, a robotic sorter, uses a camera and two robots for the quality control. Aluminium, ferrous metals and mixed plastics are recovered for recycling by other processors.

Each decontamination silo can handle up to 1.5 tonnes of material per hour while the washing line has an hourly output of three tonnes.

‘We really are a technology company,’ says ceo Bob  Daviduk. ‘rPlanet Earth has brought technology to bear on the way that post-consumer PET is recycled.’

WHY SHIP AIR?

rPlanet Earth’s end-products – predominantly preforms and plastic sheet – go to beverage, food and cosmetics producers. So why not make the bottles on site at rPlanet Earth? ‘Makes no sense,’ says Daviduk. ‘We would be shipping a lot of air,’ he explains.

The plant’s carbon footprint is claimed to be 60% less than that of packaging made from virgin resin and 20% less than that for rPET products from other companies. The facility uses 90% less water than a PET resin plant in generating the same output.

The company says its products comprise 100% recycled plastic, although engineering director Lopez acknowledges virgin materials are sometimes added to the process ‘depending on customer demand’.

SECOND LINE, MORE PLANTS

Meanwhile, Daviduk and his team of engineers are busy exploring capacity expansion. A second production line is planned for the LA – Vernon facility within the next two years. ‘There is room enough and the utilities and other infrastructure are already in place to support a new line that can have a capacity 50% larger than that of our existing line,’ Daviduk says.

Furthermore, plans to build four facilities elsewhere in the US are in advanced stage, he adds. ‘We have already picked locations. There will be operations in Pennsylvania, Chicago, Texas and Jacksonville, Florida – all at least as big as our LA facility.’   

His company is also interested in bringing the rPlanet concept to other countries and continents.