US-based food-grade recycled PET or rPET producer CarbonLite has installed Buhler's SORTEX Sorting Technology to increase its output quality to near-perfect purity.
Bühler's technology has the ability to conduct simultaneous, multi-characteristic sorting of rPET flakes, which includes phasing out various foreign materials.
The solution will help CarbonLite to sort incoming rPET flakes for colour and remove unwanted polymers such as polyvinyl Chloride, polyethylene, polypropylene, polyamide and polystyrene, along with aluminium and paper from the clear rPET.
The selection of sorting technology formed a significant part in CarbonLite's 2012 investment, in a new bottle-to-bottle plastic recycling plant located in Riverside, California, USwhich spans 220,000 square feet.
The facility allows the company to recover more than two billion used plastic PET bottles per year.
The incoming post-consumer PET is processed into rPET pellets which can be manufactured into new plastic beverage bottles, as per the standards of food industry customers like Pepsico and Nestle.
CarbonLite's chairman Leon Farahnick said Bühler technology allowed the company to simplify the stringent recycling process required to produce food grade rPET.
"In turn, this has reduced the CarbonLite plant's energy consumption and carbon footprint," Farahnick added.
"We're committed to being the leading bottle-to-bottle recycler, while we preserve resources and reduce the carbon footprint from PET bottle production."
