RECOVERY OF DISCHARGED FRACTIONS OF PET RECYCLING PROCESS

Project Information

HORTAPPET

Grant agreement ID: 736445

DOI

10.3030/736445

Project closed

EC signature date 29 July 2016

Start date 1 August 2016

End date 30 November 2016

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Climate action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

PETRA POLIMERI SRL
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - HORTAPPET (RECOVERY OF DISCHARGED FRACTIONS OF PET RECYCLING PROCESS)

Reporting period: 2016-08-01 to 2016-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The current scenario of plastic waste is unsustainable: only 26% of the 25 million tonnes of post-consumer plastic waste (mainly PET bottles) were recycled in Europe in 2012. Moreover, even though PET can be recycled, the recycling process is not 100% efficient: since the finest fraction of flakes with size<2mm causes problems during the process, this is separated and landfilled. To address this issue, at PETRA we have developed an in-house process to recover this fraction of PET fines and valorize it into our HORTAPPET material. Our aim is to industrialize the production of HORTAPPET and commercialize it in Europe as containers for the horticultural sector, to which it will represent an improvement over current materials (r-PET, r-PP and r-PS) as it is free of contaminants, 100% recyclable, shows better thermal and mechanical resistance and lower price.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Over the past 4 months we performed a technical plan, defining a strategy to consolidate our supply chain, designing the pilot plant including its equipment and preparing a detailed work plan for Phase 2, assessing all potential risks to successfully release HORTAPPET.
We also carried out a commercial Plan and a Freedom to Operate Analysis. In the former we developed a detailed market analysis, verifying that our target market (the EU market for horticultural containers) shows potential for growth- it is expected to reach €300 million in 2020. This and the Circular Economy directives of EC are expected to favour the deployment of HORTAPPET, for which we prepared a detailed exploitation and dissemination strategy. Moreover, our FOA guaranteed that HORTAPPET is freely exploitable.
Finally, we prepared a financial plan, in which we reviewed all established production costs, pricings and forecasts: HORTAPPET will enable us to achieve revenues of €5.56 million by 2024.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

HORTAPPET will be a new multilayer polymeric material made from a currently landfilled fraction of PET waste to be deployed in the form of cultivation containers for the horticultural sector. These HORTAPPET cultivation containers will be the first made from a fraction currently discarded as waste that are able to last for the full plant life cycle, with improved properties over r-PET, r-PS and r-PP and at a 20% lower cost. Moreover, HORTAPPET will contribute to boost the growth of our company, both in economic and headcount terms.

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