Armacell, a global leader in flexible foam for the equipment insulation market and a leading provider of engineered foams, has passed a significant recycling milestone: two billion plastic bottles have now been given a new life.
Worldwide, a million plastic drinking bottles are bought every minute. Most are probably thrown away or end up in landfill. Although awareness of the plastic waste issue has been growing in recent years, the circular economy in plastics is still a work in progress. One example of successful recycling is ArmaPET.
From 1 billion to 2 billion in only two years
Waste plastic bottles are recycled and given a new life using Armacell’s unique recycled PET foam technology known as rPET. “From the start of rPET series production to the one billion recycled bottles’ milestone took nine years; for the second billion only two years,” says Thomas Kessel, Managing Director, PET Foams, Armacell. ”In recent years, we have greatly expanded our production capacities and extended the geographical reach by opening additional ArmaPET production lines in Brampton, Canada in 2017 and in Suzhou, China in 2020. In 2021, two more production lines were commissioned at the Armacell PET headquarters in Thimister Belgium,” Kessel adds.
Growing demand for ArmaPET product solutions
“The growing demand for recycled PET foam core products has been driven, on the one hand, by the replacement of competing materials such as PVC, PUR, balsa, honeycomb materials, etc., and on the other hand by the increasing use of recycled PET foam core products in the wind energy, transport, construction and other industries. Another factor fuelling this demand surge has been the desire for more sustainable sourcing in the material selection process. As a result, industrial designers, specifiers and composite manufacturers are increasingly replacing those traditional core materials with ArmaPET products, which are made from recycled plastic bottles and fully recyclable themselves,” Henri Chapelle, Global Sales & Marketing Manager, PET Foams, Armacell, points out.
