Transfer of Multimaterial Flexible Packaging to Circular Economy

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On January 16, 2018 the first-ever European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy has been published. The Commission strives for solutions to get all plastic packaging recyclable by 2030. FlexPack2Circle is a timely action to address the EU directives to stop incineration and landfilling and to recover secondary raw materials. Saperatec is worldwide the first company offering a holistic approach to transfer flexible packaging waste (FlexPack) into the circular economy by a breakthrough technology to recover ALL materials of multimaterial laminates. The patented technology separates PE/aluminum/PET composites in a gentle way without material loss receiving high purity materials. For its innovative approach Saperatec has been awarded with several prizes, such as the Greentech award, Europe’s most renowned environmental and business prize. During FlexPack2Circle the pilot line proven processes will be transferred to industrial scale resulting in a 1st unique recycling plant with a capacity of 18.000 t/a. The business and commercialisation plans are finalized. On short-term Saperatec focuses on the recycling of post-industrial waste from the packaging industry, the market of which is with 400.000 t/a large enough to start the business. More than 200% of the annual yearly plant capacity are already secured by LOIs from potential infeed and outbound customers. The Saperatec business is high risk due to the large capital investments needed. However, currently Saperatec is in the final phase of term sheet preparation with the investors. With the support of the European commission Saperatec is able to accelerate the upscaling and to keep R&D and pilot line activities on high level to further upgrade the material quality, to develop a new packaging design with compatible adhesives and to expand the infeed package portfolio to postconsumer waste. Moreover, FlexPack2Circle is a great chance to extend the Europe- and worldwide contacts to potential customers.