Ganesha Ecopet, a subsidiary of Indian PET recycling pioneer Ganesha Ecosphere, has recently opened its new Warangal plant in Telangana state, where it is producing rPET for filament yarns and fibres, as well as for food-grade packaging. 

The company has installed two Starlinger PET recycling lines at the plant and will supply rPET granulates under its newly introduced Go Rewise brand.

Fibre applications

The first Starlinger recycling line, a recoSTAR PET 165 H-VAC, processes washed PET bottle flakes for the Go Rewise polyester filament yarn applications and will reach an output of approximately 14,000 tons per year. When using recycled PET for filament yarn production, it must meet the highest quality standards and all foreign particles and polymers have to be removed before the extrusion process. To achieve optimum melt purity for extrusion, Starlinger has developed a special candle filter for fibre applications called the Rapid Sleeve Changer (RSC). It ensures the finest melt filtration down to 15μm and achieves a throughput of up to 2,000kg per hour. The filter elements can be changed without interrupting production which significantly reduces melt loss and machine downtime.

With the second Starlinger recycling line, Ganesha is producing food-grade rPET resins.

The Starlinger recoSTAR PET 165 HC iV+ bottle-to-bottle recycling system features an SSP (solid state polycondensation) reactor for food-grade decontamination of the rPET pellets. The line started production in July 2022 and has an output of up to 1,800kg of recycled PET pellets per hour. The food-safe rPET is supplied to environment-conscious and quality-focused brands which use it in their brand packaging.

Closing the loop

“Through venturing into bottle-to-bottle recycling we want to close the loop and move from secondary recycling into primary recycling,” says Prashant Khandelwal, senior vice president of Go Rewise. “Bottle-to-bottle recycling reduces the need for virgin plastic and thus substantially decreases the plastic burden. It also uses approximately 80 % less resources – water, energy etc. – for producing a new bottle, than is the case with virgin resin. Earlier, brand owners used to be apprehensive about including rPET in their packaging product, but with the emergence of new technologies and strict regulations by governments the demand for rPET is increasing very fast.”

There are special challenges associated with food-grade applications, he adds.

“Raw material quality is highly variable, especially in India. The scrap has all kinds of impurities and every batch that enters the factory is different. It has taken us 30 years to understand and master the art of handling such waste. With the world’s best technologies, we can now achieve the quality needed for food-grade applications.”

With the new plant, Go Rewise becomes one of the first recycled PET brands in India to provide food-grade rPET for the local and international packaging market.

 “Starlinger’s PET recycling technology has received several Letters of Non-Objection from the US FDA as well as the positive opinions of Europe’s EFSA for food-grade applications and is already well known among brand owners,” says Khandelwal. “The proven quality, equipment reliability and technology standard, as well as efficient resource consumption while delivering best quality output were additional points.

With both new Starlinger lines operational, the rPET production capacity at the facility will reach 40,000 tons per year.

Network

Founded in 1987, Ganesha Ecosphere started out as a yarn processing facility. It was among the first companies in India to start reprocessing PET waste to manufacture recycled polyester staple fibre (RPSF) and recycled polyester spun yarns (RPSY) in 1994.

Today, the group has established a large network of over 300 scrap vendors located across the country and operates four factories in India – two in Uttar Pradesh, one in Uttarakhand, and the recently opened one in Telangana. It also recently operationalised its first factory outside India in Nepal.

With over 500 customers and exports to more than 18 countries, the company ranks among the largest rPET producers in India with 130,000 tons per year and currently recycles around 16-18% of India’s total PET waste.

“Ganesha Ecosphere has a remarkable history in PET recycling”, says Paul Niedl, commercial head of Starlinger recycling technology. “The company’s founder Shyam Sunder Sharmma recognised the big potential that used PET bottles provide as a secondary resource at a remarkably early stage, making the company a trailblazer for bottle-to-fibre and now bottle-to-bottle applications. We feel proud to support Ganesha Ecosphere in reducing plastic waste and establishing a closed loop for PET bottle waste in India – a country with great potential in this sector.”

www.ganeshaecosphere.com

www.gorewise.com

www.starlinger.com