Page 54 from: What’s inside issue #4?

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Big dreams and ambition
unite plastics recyclers
The 2024 PRSE Expo & Conference in Amsterdam was bigger than ever, spanning

four halls and drawing a much more global audience. This interest reflects the tar-

gets set by established recyclers as well as newcomers.

funding available for recyclers. Even
so, it’s not always distributed fairly.
‘The money should go to people who
are mechanically recycling, not merely
treating leftover production scrap or
down-cycling,’ the recycler argues.
‘It’s great that a bottle is turned into a
shoe sole or car mat. What comes
after that? Such products don’t have
many lifetimes and eventually get
burned or landfilled.’
Those pulling the most weight from a
nationwide perspective are the inde-
pendent collectors. ‘There are thou-
sands of mothers and fathers, some-
times entire families, collecting bot-
tles day after day,’ Rathore says. ‘It’s a
mode of survival for them, recycling
helps them stay afloat. These people
are the foundation of Indonesia’s
recycling sector. We rely on them for
most of our material. I have the
utmost respect for them.’

PATENTED CLEANING TECH
Maintaining clean equipment to maxi-
mise efficiency, especially when it
comes to extrusion, is a must for recy-
clers. ‘That’s what we’re here for,’
says Almudena Idígoras Chaumel,
engineer and sales manager of Italian
firm Petrelli. ‘Our patented ovens,
which directly heat the material build-
up from the inside, ensure a super-
fast cleaning process. It prevents
recycling lines from being inactive.’
The Italian system takes around an
hour to remove the plastic build-up.
‘Other systems take up to eight hours
so our method saves a lot of time.
This way, we can reduce energy costs
by, on average, 40%.’
Another benefit is that the Petrelli
system doesn’t overheat, which can
be a problem during cleaning. ‘Too
much heat can bend the metal and
fundamentally damage the recycling
equipment. This is not the case with
us,’ Idígoras Chaumel explains.
For recyclers who don’t have their
own cleaning system, Petrelli offers
an ‘on demand’ cleaning service. ‘We
have big players sending over their
machinery on a weekly basis. Others
prefer a contract allowing a certain
numbers of cleaning services per
month or per year.’

Plastics recyclers haven’t had it easy
over the past year. But there are clear
signs of improvement, according to
market players Recycling International
spoke to in the Dutch capital. The
general consensus at the PRSE Expo
& Conference was that it’s neither
smart to wait for the right time to
make a move – nor be daunted by
persisting uncertainty.

BOTTLE-TO-BOTTLE BOOST
‘Innovation waits for no man and we
look at it from the bright side: tension
can be a great motivator,’ says Gautam
Rathore, md of Indonesian plastics
recycler Bumi Indus Padma Jaya (BIPJ).
The company, based in Jombang, East
Java, is a food grade recycled polyeth-
ylene (PET) resin manufacturer and pro-
cesses two billion bottles per year.

The 20 000m greenfield facility oper-
ates state-of-the-art technology and
employs 150 people ‘passionate
about recycling’. The workforce is
quickly growing, supported by count-
less informal ‘agents’ that drop off
used bottles on a daily basis.
Rathore points out that 68% of all
PET bottles consumed in Indonesia
are collected for recycling, although
most are down-cycled into non-food
industry applications.
‘We are hoping to change that by
offering premium food-grade recycled
PET. In my eyes, bottle-to-bottle recy-
cling is the future. It’s already proven
to be a success story in many coun-
tries. There is no reason it can’t work
in Indonesia if you really commit to it.’

FAKE CLAIMS
Used PET bottles are gathered at col-
lection hubs across the island and
shipped to BIPJ’s headquarters. The
food-grade output has allowed the
company to stand out in an industry
that Rathore laments is still fighting
‘greenwashing’.
‘We encourage companies to include
as much recycled content as possible.
This is perfectly possible. Sadly, not
everyone makes good on their prom-
ise. I can’t tell you how often I’ve
heard someone boast about recycled
content only to find out they were
talking about production waste.
‘It’s disheartening because you and I
know that’s not the same thing. How
is that helping clean our oceans?
Plastic pollution is a huge issue across
Asia too – so this attitude really both-
ers me.’

FUNDING
Rathore adds that growing interest in
plastics recycling has made more

A U T H O R Kirstin Linnenkoper

Almost 70% of all PET bottles consumed in Indonesia are collected for recycling.

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