Sustainable Plastics - September/October 2020 - 20

Inside at...

Plasmac's Alpha extruder is perfect
for in-line trim recycling
continued from page 19
business.
The company has kept its
sales levels on target by finding
new ways of doing business:
"Lots of Zoom and social media
activity, and we have a very active local sales network able to
travel within their own country,"
explained Jay.
There have been effects in
the form of projects that have
been postponed due to the crisis, but many of the company's
customers were so-called 'essential businesses' that stayed
open. These businesses have
remained buoyant, continuing
to invest and to upgrade their
recycling capabilities.
In addition, extrusion companies are increasingly realising the benefits of investing in
recycling capacity, and not just
because it helps them to meet
their recycled content targets.
Financially, too, companies are
finding that it is much more effective to recycle their industrial
waste and then reuse it instead
of sending it away to be recycled
or, as Jay pointed out, in the worst
case, send it to be landfilled.
"In fact, we've also seen
some slightly unforeseen benefits," said Jay.
"We've been approached by
a number of companies that
make PPE - personal protection equipment - and have obviously seen enormous growth
over the last few months,
especially products such as

20

The Omega plastic
recycling system

non-woven masks. They also
want to recycle their in-house
waste, or even the complete
mask, if there's a manufacturing error or fault. So, we've
been doing a lot of trials for
these companies as well."
The initial results from a few
customers have been positive,
he said. Using an Omega machine, the material is shredded, fed back directly into the
screw of the extruder and then
repelletised.
"We're waiting for them to
test the material, and as soon
as they do that, we'll know for
sure that it has been a success."

New developments
The success of the Alpha
and the Omega extruders and
growth of the business has led

September/October 2020

to the development of a third
model, dubbed the Epsilon.
"It will be a combination of
the Alpha and the Omega, but
with a much smaller footprint,
for use in high-speed extrusion
lines," said Jay.
"That's definitely a trend that
we see - that the blown film and
the cast film manufacturers are
looking for speed and output
increases. And because of that,
our customers, either the OEMs
or the end customer need a
cost-effective system that can
recycle the inline trims. So, the
Epsilon is going to be a hybrid
- with a small inline shredder."
He mentioned that a few had
already been sold, with the first
ones to be delivered at the end of
the year. The Epsilon will be exhibited at NPE, but the company
hopes to officially launch it earli-

er, by the beginning of next year.
"We are in the process of
moving," Jay explained. "Our
parent Syncro has invested in a
huge new manufacturing plant,
located very close to where
they are now. Because we've
outgrown our facility and need
more manufacturing space,
we'll be moving into their old facility - which offers double the
space of our present one. We'll
keep the present building to become an R&D centre.
We hope to be able to organise a big open house at the
beginning of next year, if not
physically then at least virtually
-and we are looking to officially
launch the Epsilon there. And if
it does have to be virtual, we'll
do something to mark it - and
when we can do a physical
event we will."
Sustainable Plastics - September/October 2020

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