PETCIA (PET Compañía para su reciclado) is a specialised PET sorting and recycling company that belongs to Dentis Group, one of the main European players for mechanically recycled PET. Their mechanical recycling process consists in several steps: bales breaking, bottles pre-washing, grinding, washing, drying and packaging products. In this process, many types of by-products can be generated, with different levels of PET and contaminants.
The materials offered are R-PET SR, R-PET MD and R-PET PO grade. R-PET SR grade is generated mainly after washing the flakes. The flakes size is between 0.6-8 mm and the total contamination level is maximum 1%. R-PET MD grade is represented by the scrap from sorting the flakes. The material contains wrong colour flakes (according to the type of material processed) and small levels of contaminants, with a maximum of 0.22%. R-PET PO grade is a fine PET powder collected by the aspiration system. The particle size is under 3 mm and the total contamination level is maximum 2.1%.
The chemical PET depolymerisation process could represent a complementary strategy to the mechanical one, employing all the plastic packaging difficult to recycle otherwise, as well as the main by-products of the mechanical process. Therefore, the DEMETO project represents a valid and innovative complementary depolymerisation process, able to contribute to the development of an integrated mechanical-chemical PET recycling model. Within this context, PETCIA can offer a deep know-how in the PET collection and recycling markets all over Europe, with an established PET supply-chain.
“PETCIA is interested in improving the purity of the PET material and we believe that the DEMETO project is a good way for obtaining this.”
Figure 1. PET mechanical recycling main steps at PET Compañía para su reciclado (Chiva, Spain).
Figure 2. (a) R-PET SR grade; (b) R-PET MD grade; (c) R-PET PO grade.