WANTED: SOLUTIONS ON A SILVER PLATTER

Dear Reader,

As consumers, we are currently experiencing above-average price increases for food. In numerous media, market experts and statisticians emphasise that the effects of the war in Ukraine are becoming increasingly visible. It is also driving up energy and raw material prices, which are burdening consumers and industry alike. In addition, bottlenecks in supply chains continue to worsen - weighing on the industry after a long investment backlog and partly full order books. And time is pressing to implement climate targets.

Experts are working on solutions across industries: Solutions that further reduce the need for fossil fuels. Solutions that simultaneously improve emission reduction, reduce the economic risk of purchasing electricity, optimise the use of green electricity and, above all, further advance the circular economy.

Availability of rPET is a key issue in our industry: rPET is in demand like never before. The bottle-to-bottle approach is doing a good job here. But isn’t there more? Packaging-to-packaging, for example?

Keeping an eye on the big picture with all its challenges and recognising the feasible small steps often leads to innovative ideas and to simply tackling things. One example of this is a cooperation team with locations in Austria and Germany that is taking on the challenge of establishing a PET recycling loop from non-beverage packaging for non-food and, in the long term, also for food applications. Read in this issue about the status of the project to create a new rPET resource from plastic waste other than PET beverage bottles with a holistic approach.

Engineers love challenges and develop solutions, as the stories, products and developments in this issue also prove. Many more will be presented by the plastics and packaging industry at the major industry trade fairs in autumn - with full force and on a silver platter.

I wish you a pleasant reading!

Yours,

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Otto Appel

PETnology/tecPET GmbH