Innovative MAS line for packaging film recycling

Thanks to new tech­nolo­gies, greater pre­ci­sion in col­lec­tion and sort­ing, and the con­tin­u­ous devel­op­ment and refine­ment of lines and plants, more plas­tics than ever can now be processed and returned to the recy­cling and upcy­cling loop. Recent­ly, a cus­tomized, inte­grat­ed, inno­v­a­tive MAS line went into oper­a­tion that reprocess­es pre­vi­ous­ly dis­posed of pack­ag­ing film waste for high­ly sen­si­tive applications—a major chal­lenge met with inge­nu­ity and exper­tise.

LLDPE for pet food packaging

The South Viet­namese com­pa­ny Thành Phú Plas­tic Pack­ag­ing JSC, a pio­neer and inno­va­tor in the use of indus­tri­al equip­ment and plas­tics through­out South­east Asia, pro­duces a wide range of pack­ag­ing solu­tions. Food packaging—particularly pet food packaging—is espe­cial­ly chal­leng­ing in this spe­cif­ic field. Food pack­ag­ing must com­ply with a wide range of laws and reg­u­la­tions and the high­est stan­dards, from the qual­i­ty of the plas­tic and film to puri­ty and even odor—an impor­tant issue when you con­sid­er how sen­si­tive pets’ noses are.

One of the key com­po­nents of pet food pack­ag­ing is a film made of a spe­cial type of LLDPE. The pack­ag­ing design involves a lot of waste and resid­ual mate­r­i­al that is very dif­fi­cult to recy­cle due to its light weight and high vol­ume. Accord­ing­ly, up to 30% of the raw mate­r­i­al used in the pack­ag­ing film had to be dis­posed of com­plete­ly—sev­er­al tons of plas­tic per day. For a com­pa­ny that not only strives for tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion but also for a sus­tain­able, resource-con­serv­ing approach to the envi­ron­ment, this was of course unac­cept­able.

Holistic MAS line for recycling without pollutants

Con­tact with MAS was estab­lished through the Ham­burg-based com­pa­ny Rieck­er­mann, which has had a strong pres­ence in Viet­nam for decades. The objec­tive was clear: Plas­tic waste that had pre­vi­ous­ly been dis­posed of was to be recy­cled and fed back into the pro­cess­ing cycle—as gen­tly as pos­si­ble and with no loss of mate­r­i­al, while retain­ing the high-qual­i­ty mate­r­i­al prop­er­ties. A spe­cial­ly devel­oped line, tai­lored to the customer’s require­ments and con­sist­ing of sev­er­al MAS sys­tems arranged in series, now process­es around 500 kg or 130 m³ of film per hour. This com­plete sys­tem shreds film scraps, melts the mate­r­i­al, increas­es the mate­r­i­al qual­i­ty by adding addi­tives, and fil­ters out both pol­lu­tants and unwant­ed odors. The result: High puri­ty that meets even the strictest stan­dards and reg­u­la­tions.

How the customized MAS complete solution works

With the excep­tion of the upstream shred­der, the entire line (includ­ing the steel struc­ture and plat­form) was sup­plied by MAS, care­ful­ly deliv­ered to Viet­nam, and assem­bled on site.

• · In the shred­der pro­vid­ed by the cus­tomer, the film scraps and off­cuts are shred­ded into small par­ti­cles of about 6 mm and con­veyed by a blow­er into a puffer silo which has space for about 200 kg or 6 m³ of film.
  
• The sub­se­quent belt weigher acts as a dos­ing sys­tem. Weigh­ing cells on the con­vey­or belt mea­sure the weight and indi­cate how much mate­r­i­al is cur­rent­ly being fed to the extrud­er. This means the feed rate can be direct­ly con­trolled and read­just­ed.
  
• A stuffer feeds the mate­r­i­al into the feed­er and final­ly into the screw, where the large vol­ume of film is com­pressed and can then be more eas­i­ly fed to the extrud­er.
  
• A con­nect­ed fil­ter with a fine­ness of 0.0064 mm sep­a­rates any con­t­a­m­i­nants such as stones and for­eign par­ti­cles.
  
• The mate­r­i­al is cleaned again and deodor­ized via a cas­cade. The sec­ond clean­ing stage—the process water vac­u­um sys­tem CC290—excludes the small­est of oth­er vapors and con­t­a­m­i­nants to guar­an­tee the best, odor­less prod­uct qual­i­ty.
  
• Final­ly, the liq­uid melt enters the gran­u­la­tion unit to pro­duce pellets—the end prod­uct for fur­ther film pro­duc­tion. The pel­lets are then filled into big bags.

This com­plete solu­tion was cer­tain­ly an excit­ing chal­lenge, and it is also unique in Viet­nam. Both MAS and the client Thành Phú Plas­tic Pack­ag­ing JSC are proud to high­light their respec­tive pio­neer­ing roles with a line that will pay for itself with­in a few years. Fur­ther joint projects are already in the pipeline.

If you are also look­ing for a cus­tomized solu­tion for the recy­cling and upcy­cling of var­i­ous plas­tic mate­ri­als to the high­est stan­dards, MAS is the right part­ner for you. We look for­ward to dis­cussing all your require­ments with you and mak­ing your plans a real­i­ty. We look for­ward to receiv­ing your inquiry! We are look­ing for­ward to your inquiry!