ALPLA Group (Hard, Austria) announced that it has become one of the largest polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycling companies in Germany. With the acquisition of the recycling company Texplast from the FROMM Group, and all of its shares in the joint venture PET Recycling Team Wolfen, the international company will increase its annual processing volume in Germany to 75,000 tons of PET bottles.
Following the acquisition of BTB Recycling in October 2021, ALPLA increased its processing volumes in Germany to a total of around 75,000 tons of PET input. This includes 55,000 tons by Texplast and the JV PET Recycling Team Wolfen and 20,000 tons by BTB. ‘Our goal is the cycle from bottle to bottle. We are stepping up our activities worldwide to meet growing demand for post-consumer recyclate. This investment will strengthen our position in the German market and guarantee high quality and availability of the material for our customers,’ ALPLA CEO Philipp Lehner explains.
Texplast, founded in 1992, produces PET pellets and flakes from used PET bottles. The pellets are primarily used for preforms for new PET bottles. The colourful PET flakes produced during the process are used by the packaging manufacturer FROMM to produce packing strap. However, the focus has increasingly shifted towards the bottle cycle in recent years.
“The long-term, and successful, collaboration with the FROMM Group was the perfect basis for this development. The acquisition enabled us to increase our capacity quickly and efficiently. And this will also help us to secure production for both sides in the future,’ says Georg Lässer, Head of Recycling at ALPLA. The colourful flakes will also be supplied exclusively to FROMM in the future. ‘We have a highly motivated, fully functional team and we are proud to welcome all 125 Texplast employees into the ALPLA family,’ Lässer adds.
PET Recycling Team Wolfen specializes in the recycling of PET bottles from ‘yellow bag’ – German bin for household recyclables. These are returned from household collection to the recycling loop. The sorting and processing systems at Texplast’s site in Wolfen, which are unique worldwide, were set up in 2019.