AMUT installs equipment in Mexico

Novara, Italy-based equipment company AMUT Group says it installed equipment at the Indorama Ventures plant in Guadalajara, Mexico, to help produce recycled-content polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) flakes.

The plant is scheduled to ramp up to full production by the fall of 2019.  Petrochemical company Indorama, headquartered in Bangkok, has a presence in 31 countries and has been increasingly investing in the recycling sector.

Yash Awasthi, vice president of Indorama Ventures North American Operations, comments, “The new plant will process more than 100 million pounds (50,000 tons) of plastic bottles annually into clean PET flakes to produce our FuTuRe-PET.” Indorama describes FuTuRe PET as a 100 percent recycled-content PET product. The rPET flakes will be used to produce new resins for a variety of products, according to the firm.

Awasthi praises the washing abilities of Amut’s equipment. “AMUT’s washing section is capable of reaching 4,000 kilograms per hour (8,800 pounds per hour),” he comments. “The processed bottles are extremely dirty, being postconsumer [and] landfill collected. These are the dirtiest bottles seen in this market, and AMUT technology is able to obtain the premier-value clean rPET flakes from them.”

AMUT says it also will assist in the upgrade of the existing EcoMex Indorama plastics recycling facility in Zapopan, Mexico. When the expansion of the EcoMex plant is complete, the facility will be able to produce more than 13,000 pounds (6.5 tons) per hour of rPET flakes from postconsumer PET bottles.

“We have been working with AMUT for a number of years to develop an excellent technological and yet economical solution to meet our high standards for rPET flakes,” says Awasthi. “AMUT is a proven machinery and technology manufacturer that has demonstrated how to best meet our goals and objectives.”