Starlinger installs equipment at European plastics recycler

From left, Dace Samuša, director of SIA Nordic Plast; Maris Simanovics, CEO of Eco Baltia Grupa; Tatjana Malez, Starlinger recycling technology; and Marius Maslauskas, UAB Plamika, in front of the Starlinger recoSTAR basic 165 VAC during the facility's grand opening.

The Latvia-based plastics recycling company SIA Nordic Plast, part of the environmental management company Eco Baltia, has opened a plastics recycling facility in Olaine, Latvia. A key piece of equipment installed at the facility was a recoSTAR basic 165 VAC recycling line from the equipment company Starlinger. The company invested more than €2.5 million (US$3.236 million) on the new recycling facility.

Nordic Plast specializes in recycling low density polyethylene (LDPE) film, high density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP).

“Nordic Plast has decided to install a recoSTAR basic 165 VAC recycling line after a long and very thorough examination of the equipment parameters and its full compliance with our requirements regarding the types and quality of the processed products,” says Dace Samuša, director of SIA Nordic Plast. “Our final product — different kinds of polymer pellets — has always met the highest standards of recycled pellets. We wished to preserve the high quality in production also with the equipment we selected. We are very pleased with our choice as the quality of the end product is what we had expected,” she adds.

The recoSTAR basic 165 VAC is designed to process input materials with up to 10 percent humidity content as well as heavily contaminated post-consumer waste. It has a production capacity of up to 1,300 kg/hour and is used for recycling washed polypropylene big bags and washed polyethylene film. Two main machine features are the water ring pelletizer that Starlinger recycling technology has developed for processing polyolefins, and the continuous rotation filter for the removal of coarse impurities.

The company recycles the scrap plastics into five types of pellets. The pellets are used to produce pipes, industrial containers, waste containers, boxes, polyethylene film, trash bags and similar products.

With the new equipment Nordic Plastic is expected to increase its production from 5,000 metric tons per year to 8,500 metric tons per year.