Aliplast boosts recycled PET: PET recycling site acquired from Gurit Italia

2025-04-02 1:47 min

Aliplast Bologna, Italy

The Hera Group subsidiary, a European leader in plastic regenerating, has integrated Gurit Italia's Carmignano di Brenta plant dedicated to PET recycling, an investment that looks towards the growth of an increasingly important market

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Incremental production capacity of 15,000 tonnes

Aliplast plants are specialized the recycling of post-consumer materials, such as bottles and everyday packaging. The recycled polymers include PET, LDPE, HDPE, and PP, transformed into granules or flakes for various uses, such as the subsequent production of bottles, bags, or packaging films. The company has 5 other plants in Italy along with other platforms in Spain, France, and Poland. It recycles over 100,000 tons of plastics annually, mainly from post-consumer materials.

Aliplast, among Europe's leaders in plastic regeneration, grows again in recycled PET. Controlled by Herambiente, part of the Hera Group, this company has now acquired the Gurit Italia business unit dedicated to PET recycling, operating in the Carmignano di Brenta (Padua) plant, with an incremental production capacity of roughly 15,000 tonnes of recycled PET per year.

An evolving regulatory framework will expand demand for recycled PET

This acquisition is part of Aliplast's broader strategy aimed at responding to the growing demand for recycled PET, which is also a consequence of the evolution of the European and Italian regulatory framework.

In particular, legislative decree 196/21, which applies in Italy the so-called Directive 2019/904 SUP (Single Use Plastics), includes among its various requirements as of 1 January the obligation for plastic containers of liquid foodstuffs to contain at least 25% of recycled raw material. An increased use of recycled plastics is also required by the new European PPWR packaging regulation.

The production and logistics platform integrated in Aliplast

The Carmignano di Brenta plant processes incoming post-consumer PET coming from the recovery chains of the Corepla and Coripet consortia. Thanks to this investment, Aliplast will integrate a new PET grinding, washing and extrusion line, suitable both for food contact (e.g. bottles or food trays) and for use in fibres destined for consumer products such as clothing or automobile accessories.

In addition to increasing production capacity, this acquisition will also optimise Aliplast's logistics chain, which will be able to integrate Gurit's large storage yards into its flow of goods.

Petrone, Aliplast CEO: "continuing along a path of qualitative and quantitative growth"

"This acquisition is, first and foremost, in line with our Business plan, which includes the regeneration of resources as one of its qualifying points," explains Michele Petrone, Aliplast CEO. "It also continues along a path of growth characterised not only by an expansion of production capacity, but also by an increasing focus on quality and traceability, to guarantee customers the highest standards in terms of supply chain transparency and product safety. This is a vision that looks towards the long term and which in 2024 rewarded us with an expansion of our customer base by more than 9% compared to the previous year."

Source: Gruppo Hera via PRNewswire