Erema plans US open house to show off recycling technology

Recycling is making global headlines this year, and that's good news for the leading player in the plastics recycling equipment market, Erema Engineering Recycling Maschinen und Anlagen GmbH.

The Ansfelden, Austria-based company has recently completed expansion projects in both Austria and the United States. Investment was necessary to keep up with demand; Erema has seen its global sales nearly double in the last eight years.

"Times are changing," CEO Manfred Hackl said in a telephone interview. "Worldwide, orders are quite good."

Hackl was visiting the Erema North America Inc. technical center in Ipswich, Mass., which is preparing for a Sept. 26 open house. Erema expects 80 to 100 customers to attend, where they'll see a variety of recycling equipment in operation.

Erema is hearing a lot of questions from customers about China's recent decision to stop accepting imports of dirty plastic waste. Hackl expects the news to create opportunities, including in the United States, but not necessarily in the short term.

"We see clear possibilities in the U.S," he said. Erema is seeing growing business from processors recycling their in-house waste, in addition to recyclers of post-consumer PET, high density polyethylene and supermarket film.

Worldwide roughly 60 percent of Erema's sales are to recyclers of post-consumer plastic, Hackl said. He sees China's move as "quite positive" for plastics recycling.

"Material should stay in the region or country where it is generated. It is kind of a resource for this region," Hackl said. The question now is whether China will stick with the new policy over the long term.

"U.S. recyclers, for example, could make some profit out of it," he said. "But it takes time for U.S. recyclers to build up capacity. Hopefully China is staying quite strong and long behind this commitment.

"In the short term, this will not immediately impact our business. Recyclers will not immediately order new machines," he said.

Recyclers remain concerned with how growing capacity for virgin resins, especially polyethylene, will impact their business.

"The pressure on recyclers will increase," he said.

Erema claims the top spot in the plastics recycling equipment market, with annual sales of about 125 million euros ($146 million). Hackl said Erema, which employs about 500 globally, has grown by focusing on technology.

"We have a kind of a partnership with our customers. We talk to them about the issues they see, and we develop new technologies to deal with them," he said.

As an example, he said big brand owners that want to use more post-consumer content in their packaging were demanding that recyclers supply material with consistent, measureable quality. The ability to generate high-value recyclate that's odorless and easy to process became important to recyclers.

Erema says about 1.3 million metric tons of PET are recycled every year on its Vacurema equipment, and the trend there is to use clean flake to make end products — including food packaging — without the intermediate step of making pellets.

At the K show last fall, Erema announced a project to partner with KraussMaffei Berstorff is to supply recycling systems that combine Erema's recycling equipment and Berstorff's twin-screw compounding technology. KM recently showed the first system at a technology open house in Europe.

At the Ipswich open house, Erema will make the world premiere of its new Powerfil business unit, which offers the company's melt filtration technology as individual components for existing extrusion plants. The company says the equipment can help recyclers handle heavily contaminated material.