Nonmetallics

EASTMAN CLAIMS PET BREAKTHROUGH

A new depolymerization process that can recycle PET containers—regardless of color or coatings—into a food contact-grade PET material is being put into place by Eastman Chemical Co., Kingsport, Tenn.

"Eastman expects the new technology to boost the use of PET for consumer packaging by solving a PET recycling problem," says Beat Zueger, who has been appointed director of global recycling by Eastman to manage the company’s worldwide recycling business related to the new technology.

"The new process will be an excellent solution for problematic plastic bottle compositions and will help ‘close the loop’ as we enable bottle-to-bottle recycling in an economical process," says Zueger. "It will help PET become the complete environmentally-responsible packaging product."

Eastman’s new technology breaks the plastic down into its basic components, separates the unwanted materials, and creates a "virgin" material from a secondary raw material source for the production of new packaging materials, including food-contact approved grades.

The company has set up a pilot plant in Kingsport, Tenn., but is looking at the European recycling market as an important one for the new technology. More than 170,000 metric tons of PET will be collected in 1999, a 54% increase over 1997’s collected total.

In much of Europe, "Collection is mandated and subsidized, so you have high collection rates and an abundance of complex (multi-material) bottles," says Tom Parham, Eastman’s manager of recycling. He also says that Europe does "not have the end use markets that are as established as in the U.S., where 60% to 65% of the PET goes into the textile fiber markets."

Currently—in both the U.S. and Europe—collected PET is cleaned, chopped, melted and formed into new plastic products. Zueger says those efforts will not be at odds with Eastman’s process. "Eastman’s new technology complements these mechanical recycling efforts. The primary raw material source will be the packaging made from PET that other systems cannot handle," he notes.

Can the new technology convince soft drink bottlers to use recycled content resins? "We would like to think so," says Parham. "The secret is not only to produce pure PET, but also to be able to produce it economically."