By 2020, nearly 700 billion plastic bottles will have been produced and sold globally, a figure expected to grow at an annual rate of 4.6%. As the most recyclable PET Bottle Flakes, only half of the post-consumer pet bottles are recycled, and more are discarded for incineration and burial or into the ocean.
Hot-Washed PET Flakes
Hot washing is usually carried out using a steam cleaner, where steam is generated by a steam boiler, and cleaning agents are added to effectively remove oils, impurities, and adhesives. The hot-washed sheet can be used for：
Textile industry: r-PET is used in the textile industry for the production of clothing, home textiles, carpets, and plush toys.
Bundling and Packaging Materials: R-PET flakes due to their stable physical properties (stretchable, tough, abrasion-resistant, insulating, moisture-proof, etc.). These recycled flakes can be made into strapping materials and pet packaging films.
Thermoplastic molding: Through the thermoplastic process, sheets can be made, which are usually used for electrical insulation, joint materials for toys, and food packaging containers.
Agriculture: geotextiles and non-woven fabrics for civil engineering and agriculture.
Automotive: various physical buttons, soundproofing materials, interior trims, etc. in cars
Food packaging industry: the most extensive than a variety of liquid containers, such direct contact with the human body, usually can not directly use r-pet recycled material for production, but the use of 2:8 or 3:7 recycled material and new material mixing.
Cold-Washed PET Flakes:
A complete plastic bottle consists of three parts: the bottle body (pet), the cap (pp/pe), and the label (PVC). After crushing and washing the bottles, depending on the equipment used in each recycling plant, the final bottle flakes may have different degrees of PVC and pp/pe residues, for example, 92% pet, 6% pp/pe, and 2% PVC.
Moisture content is a common indicator for cold-washed flakes and well-processed finished products usually maintain a moisture content of 3% to 2%. They can be transparent, dark, green, blue, or other colors.
Unwashed PET Flakes
These flakes are usually made directly through crushing machines with water and may or may not have labels and caps. These flakes are widely used in industry for a variety of purposes, for example:
Composites: products that are not in direct contact with the human body are made in different ratios, often used in the construction or chemical industry
Bottles: These flakes cannot be used directly in the production of new bottles; the high content of impurities will lead to the quality of the bottle is not satisfactory, and the use of these flakes to make bottles will cause harm to the human body. For this reason, some recycling plants use pet flake washing machines to produce high-quality, harmless products. These can be sold or exported in clear, monochrome, or mixed colors.
Production Of PET Bottle Flakes
Boxin’s PET recycling washing line takes waste pet plastics through crushing, washing, sorting, drying, and processing to be downgraded mainly to fiber-grade PET bottle flakes for use.
As the EU policy stipulates that no less than 30% of PET bottles should be recycled by 2030, Boxin breaks through the industry barriers and successfully owns the core technology of the whole industry chain from waste bottles – sorting – washing – SSP – recycled food-grade polyester bottle flakes.
“Bottle-to-bottle” high-end recycling only through the physical method is challenging to get high viscosity products; the chemical method combined with physical and chemical methods can be rPET net flake viscosity treatment to get bottle-grade PET, and can be used in waste polyester fiber fabrics and other raw materials.
Our Plastic Bottle Recycling Equipment
