Erema sells seven recycling systems
IPSWICH, MASS. - Recycling equipment maker Erema GmbH has sold seven Vacurema systems for recycling PET in the first half of 2002, most of them to handle post-consumer bottle flake.
Erema of Ansfelden, Austria, said Vacurema got a boost when it was certified by the Food and Drug Administration in 2000. For the past two years, virtually all of its Vacurema sales have been for post-consumer PET.
Erema identified several of the deals from this year:
* The new PET recycling plant of Cleanaway Plastic Recycling GmbH & Co. KG in Rostock, Germany, in February.
* The sale in March of a bottle-to-bottle system for making food-grade PET pellets to Texplast GmbH of Wolfen, Germany.
* Schmalbach-Lubeca AG bought a bottle-to-bottle system for an unspecified location in France in March.
By the end of June, four other Vacurema PET systems had been shipped to other customers in Europe, the Middle East and South America. They include bottle-to-bottle recycling and also technology that turns post-consumer bottle flake into food-grade flat sheet for thermoforming, without the need for a separate pelletizing step. Erema did not reveal customers for those four lines.
Erema also said Amcor Twinpac-North America Inc. is to receive a Vacurema bottle-to-bottle system for its Amcor works in Mississauga, Ontario, this year.
Erema North America Inc. is based in Ipswich.
ACS distributing products from RDN
WOOD DALE, ILL. - Under a new agreement, auxiliary equipment maker ACS Group now is distributing RDN Manufacturing Co. Inc.'s post-extrusion products through ACS brands and sales channels. The ACS customer service group will support the equipment.
Bloomingdale, Ill.-based RDN makes vacuum calibrators, water baths, pullers, cutters and saws. ACS of Wood Dale said the RDN products complement its existing lines of materials-handling machinery, reclaim equipment, and process-cooling and temperature-control products for extrusion.
ACS Group plans to introduce more than 50 products during 2002, in addition to offering new products through distribution agreements.
CMS to distribute in North America
CALEDONIA, MICH. - While many equipment makers are retrenching in the face of depressed sales, CMS SpA of Zogno, Italy, is moving to distribute European-style vacuum thermoforming machines in the United States and Canada.
CMS North America Inc. of Caledonia will market and sell the machines. The subsidiary now distributes computer numerically controlled machining centers mostly for routing plastics, wood or aluminum. Chief Executive Officer Steve Hillis said the firm may find a marketing partner.
CMS needs assistance because its router-oriented North American sales force knows little about the technology. ``I won't claim we are knowledgeable'' about thermoforming equipment, Hillis said in a telephone interview.
Hillis established CMS' domestic router business in 1981 and ``had to figure out what the market was looking for.'' Hillis left CMS in 1996 but returned last year. Now he has the opportunity to climb a learning curve with thermoforming equipment.
CMS SpA unit Villa srl manufactures the equipment in Lozza, Italy. Villa machines have automatic forming cycles and offer a range of automatic and manual loading and unloading features. In addition, Villa is developing equipment for twin-sheet thermoforming and other specialized applications. Villa has annual sales of $3 million to $4 million, Hillis said.
The parent firm's polymer-oriented processing equipment can machine filters, gaskets and brackets of nylon, polyethylene or PVC; cut parts of glass, Kevlar aramid or carbon fibers, acrylic or sheet molding compound; and process items originating from resin transfer, rotational or reaction injection molding.