Plastics News - Show Daily - October 20, 2022 - 8

8 * Plastics News, October 20, 2022
SHOW DAILY
Erema: 'Another life for
plastic, because we care'
Erema Group CEO Manfred Hackl
at K 2022, where the company
is showing 70 products in the
Circonomic Center alone.
Plastics News photos by Caroline Seidel
Erema Group is presenting itself
as a cohesive whole, with all the
companies in the group exhibiting
together at a single shared
stand. " The time was right, "
Hackl said. " Together, the companies
can present the entire
portfolio to the customer and
the market. Customers recognize
Erema but had no idea that we
also had, for example, Keycycle
for plant engineering or Umac for
used machines. One stand makes
it easier to present the value of
the group, the different products
and the different business models
to the market. "
EREMA GROUP
Hall 9, Booth C09
By Karen Laird
Sustainable Plastics
At K 2022, evidence of the importance
of the circular economy
and the prominent role of the
recycling industry therein are
everywhere. One of the most important
players in that industry is
the Erema Group.
Sustainable Plastics walked and
talked with Manfred Hackl, CEO
of the Erema Group, who pointed
to the technical advances, including
70 products in the Circonomic
Center alone, being showcased by
Erema at K 2022. " It's this technical
progress - and working together
in the value chain - that
make it possible to implement a
circular economy, " he said.
This year at K is the fi rst time
In addition to a joint stand,
just as at previous shows, Erema
has also installed an impressive
lineup of machinery at the Circonomic
Center, which is located
outside on the fairgrounds.
Here the company is displaying a
number of collaborative projects
next to providing live recycling
demonstrations on a daily basis.
The company hopes to recycle
some 20,000 tonnes of plastics
waste at the show, turning this
into regranulate that will be supplied
to customers.
One surprising addition to the
exhibits at the Circonomic Center
are the products from Plasticpreneur,
the startup in which Erema
recently acquired a stake. Its
back-to-basics mobile recycling
solutions have been designed for
entry-level access to plastics recycling
and are deployed in settings
varying from universities,
schools and science centers to
museums and design studios, as
well as regions in the world lacking
recycling infrastructure.
" It's decentralized recycling, "
Hackl said. " These machines
make recycling available in areas
where central recycling is
not feasible. They are small-scale
solutions towards making plastics
circular. "
Clearly, recycling
has arrived
At K 2022, the six companies
that make up the Erema Group
- Erema, Pure Loop, Umac, 3s,
Keycycle and Plasmac - are
presenting their technological innovations
and services under the
motto 'Another life for plastic. Because
we care.'
" We care about creating a
greener world through plastics
recycling, to move this forward
and to lessen the chance that
the plastic will end up in the environment
and to clean up the
environment and to reprocess
used plastic into a new product.
It's these values that drive us as
a company to innovate - together
we are a strong team for
you as a customer, but also for
the environment. "
According to Hackl, plastics
consumption will only continue
to rise in the future. " That won't
change, " he said. " What will
change is that the virgin supply
will not increase as fast as demand,
which makes implementing
recycling technology essential.
It is our task to provide the
right quality of recyclate for the
right application. "
It is also why the Erema Group
has invested more than €100 million
in facilities over the past fi ve
years; in order to continue to
keep pace with developments in
the market, new technology must
be available that is aligned with
these developments.
That is not to say that Erema
has not been affected by the ongoing
shortages of materials, infl
ation and soaring energy costs.
" These have affected Erema
strongly, " said Hackl. " From one
week to the next, the supply chain
stopped functioning - parts were
no longer available that had always
been delivered regularly on
time; and that's even despite the
fact that we have a regional supply
chain - one that is in a radius
of, say, 500 kilometers around
Austria. We have still been quite
heavily impacted. "
He noted that energy costs
were more of an indirect problem,
affecting Erema Group's customers
rather than the recycling
machinery manufacturer itself.
" We are an assembling company,
not a production company,
although the cost of components
has also gone up. "
Will this affect the progress to
the circular economy? Yes, in the
short term, said Hackl. " What I
mean by the short term is six to
12 months, maybe a little longer.
And I think the slowdown will be
in Europe, not in the U.S. or Asia.
Globalwise, it will continue, but in
Europe, the economic situation is
making it diffi cult. We've seen diffi
cult times before, and they last
for a while, but we get through. "
In the long term, Hackl's vision
http://www.kuhne-group.com http://cif.com.tw
Plastics News - Show Daily - October 20, 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Plastics News - Show Daily - October 20, 2022
