Project Results and updates

Attero invested EUR 30 million in the construction of the Polymers Recycling Plant at the Wijster site. This plant reprocesses plastic bags and other films from household waste into high-quality regranulate for recycling. Attero thus takes an important step in closing the cycle of this type of plastic (LDPE). The plant was opened on 15 March 2019 by European Commission Vice-President Mr Frans Timmermans. For this innovative approach with Aganfoils, Attero will receive a LIFE grant from Europe.

Aganfoils by Attero

With the Aganfoils project Attero aims to demonstrate a new upcycling process through which post consumer plastic from dirty materials recycling facilities (MRF) can be upcycled into As Good As New plastic. With Aganfoils Attero contributes to the application of EU community environmental policy and legislation, maximizing plastic recycling from municipal solid waste and improving the quality of the resulting reusable regranulate, to ensure these plastics are not landfilled or incinerated.

This project has receiving funding from the LIFE Programme of the European Union.

Projectname: AGANFOILS – As Good as New Foils. Projectnumber: LIFE15ENV/NL/000429.

For this project we developed the animation below:

Update April 2024

Belt filter Attero / PRP / Wijster

To achieve a higher throughput at a finer filtration that is also of higher quality, we are going to install a belt filter in series on one of our EREMA extruders.

The current extruder already has a laser filter from extruder manufacturer EREMA. These filters are great for large amounts of contamination but also have quite a lot of loss of good material that used to turn the contamination outwards. This only increases the percentage lumbs.

By putting the fa. Brittas' band filter in series, we can filter coarser on the first filter (laser filter) because we are post-filtering with the band filter. In our situation, we will filter in two steps.

Despite the disadvantage of high costs for a bandpass filter, the advantages of a bandpass filter in series outweigh the disadvantages:

Using the belt filter in series increases the capacity of the extruder.
Fewer lumbs, so less loss of good material.
Increasing quality by filtering at lower pressure.
Quick change of filter pass (laser filter change 2.5 hours)

Update March 2022

Currently the PRP plant is operating in a stable and consistent manner in respect to input of polluted foils, the output and the quality of the regranulates.

Overall technical capacity on input foils has grown to 27 Kton/a without compromising on the highend foil quality output regranulates.

The commercial interest in PRP’s sustainable recycled plastic products has grown substantially over the last years, and we can hardly meet the demand. More and more social awareness, environmental challenges and rising oil prices make it clear that there is a bright future for PRP-like mechanical recycling of plastics. Chemical recyclers are interested in PRP’s sorting and cleaning facilities as well. Due to the fact that chemical recycling depends on clean and sorted PO feedstock, the washing process of PRP is a “must have” for these initiatives. Chemical and mechanical recycling are complementary in that sense so PRP knowledge will contribute even more in the future of recycling plastics in the most efficient and sustainable manner as possible.

Actions for Safety Improvements

Safety has the highest priority at Attero. This means we have started up a number of checking points. Some of these are walking safety rounds, identifying spill points and executing Good Housekeeping.

This resulted in the following:

Tools are hung on set locations colourcoordinated.Dangerous steps on plateaus are taken off with swing gatesOngoing action is to replace profiled tyres with smooth tyres with scrapers to avoid spill.
In order to give this process a continuous charakter, these items are discussed in several meetings on a regular basis. So at the end we meet the creed: “We do it safely, or we don’t do it at all”.

Water Treatment; Latest Optimizations

Follow up on the demonstration of the AGAFOILS project, Attero has recently carried out several modifications in the process.

The first optimalization is a modification of the water treatment process. The result from this optimization is that the water quantity for the washing process has almost doubled. In the process, the water is cleaned, and recent modifications make it possible to optimize the process regarding usage of chemicals and removal of dirt and without reduction of the overall quality.

Additional cleaning equipment has been installed in order to reduce the remaining contamination of the flakes even further.

These additions have been completed and are now working satisfactory.

Update November 2020

Approximately 30 to 40 percent of the domestic package-waste is made of foils. But the use of these foils in high quality applications is still limited. New foils are virgin material, mostly LDPE. Attero, TUSTI, Oerlemans Packaging were member of a CIRCO track. The joining of Pokon Naturado, TU Eindhoven and Dow Benelux led to the start of project ProLiFeX. Together the participants of this project develop a high quality granulate from the foil-stream. This granulate is then applied in the production of new film applications. The end-goal is for instance to produce PokonNaturado’s packaging of fertilizers and potting soil from this granulate.

Circular design strategy

Attero sorts foils from the domestic residual waste and PMD-waste by use of windshifters and infra-red-detection. They then shred, wash and recycle this foil to granulate. This now works well on the plant that, with help from the LIFE-subsidy, has been realized and now works satisfactory. TUSTI and the TU/e are involved as partner, who have the know how to guarantee and optimize the quality of the granulate. They evaluate the samples produced by Attero, who consequently adapt the recycling process if required, in order to improve the recyclate. For instance by refreshing the washing water sooner. Eventually Oerlemans uses the granulate to blow film applications from it.

A critical factor for the blowing of good film applications is the purity of the granulate. Therefore in order to increase the quality further, optimization of the sorting- and recycling process is required. Also additives and virgin plastics of Dow are added. The aim is to apply as many recycled foils as possible for the production of new film applications. In the single-layered foil that is used for packing of fertilizers this is easier to realize. This has to do with the lower demands for strength and appearance. For more complex, multi-layered foils this is harder, because these foils have to meet higher requirements.

Circular business model

In response to the ‘European Strategy for Plastics’ and growing pressure from society, more and more big ‘brand-owners’ set targets with respect to the use of recycled material in their packaging. Project ProLiFeX has a lead time of 2,5 years. The implementation is in cooperation with Topsector Energysubsidy (Joint Industry Project) from the Ministry of Economic Affairs. At the end of the route, the developed granulate, remains property of Attero. They bring it in the market, with a quality and corresponding price that is close to the virgin plastics.

Result & continuation ProLiFeX

At the moment parties are busy with the development of the granulate and the film applications. When this is successful, Pokon will test the film application on the packaging line for fertilizers. In the event of success, ProLiFex also develops a multi-layered foil for the production of potting soil bags, which reqeruiments are higher.

Attero would like to thank the EU for the LIFE subsidy for the Aganfoils project.

Plastics congress Velhoven

This year Attero was present at the Plastics Fair 2019. The congress took place on 25 and 26 September in NH Conference Centre Koningshof in Veldhoven. The Plastics Fair was very successful and well attended! Attero has welcomed many interested EU-parties and potential new customers.

About the congress

The 21st edition of the Plastics congress shines its light both on the congressfloor as well as on the congress-program containing actual developments and opportunities within themes such as: circular economy, durability, smart raw materials, new materials, cost saving, innovative production methods, product development and business-opportunities. Also the Plastics congress offers you the opportunity to meet all the important players from the industry in one day.

Congress theme: Plastics, too valuable to throw away!

The demand for plastics-products keeps on rising. In 70% of all new inventions contains plastics processing. The growth potential is promising, but also arises questions such as: Do we choose for new or reused? How do we use smart materials optimally? Which business opportunities does circular undertaking offer and how do we make the production processes more efficient? One thing is certain: Plastics are too valuable for our society to throw away. Not for nothing is this the theme of this edition.

Recap

It is clearly noticeable at the fair is that the recycling and development of the market for hard plastics like PP and HDPE is already further along than film recycling.
PP and HDPE are widely used and therefore in high demand.
The market for recycled film is the most 'new', especially for post-consumer packaging material.
Here we see that the EU's targets, together with the plastics pact that all major brandowners have signed, are already casting their shadow.
By 2025, all plastics should be recyclable and 25% recycled content should be applied across the market.
Everyone knows it is coming, but for now it is mainly a matter of finding the way to achieve it.
Quality is the key word here. The best qualities find their way to application fairly quickly. But the recycled raw materials from household packaging material have a quality that is not so easily deployable. Here, a lot of time and energy has to be put into finding the right combinations.
The fair in Veldhoven is the right place to listen carefully to the needs of buyers and thus make contacts for possible use and purchase in the future.

Aganfoils: As good as new

The capacity of the new reprocessing plant is 24,000 tonnes of foils per year. Attero is leading the way in Europe in building this granulate plant. The Wijster location has major advantages. The on-site separation and sorting plant supplies the foils, which means no extra transport. The process approach is unique and differs from existing plants elsewhere, as it uses hot water at a temperature of 80 degrees Celsius for the intensive washing process. This ensures optimum cleaning of the plastic and also eliminates odour. Attero will receive a LIFE grant from Europe for this innovative approach with Aganfoils. The waste-to-energy plant in Wijster supplies the required heat and water treatment capacity is available. The end product, the regranulate, thus moves up the plastic recycling value ladder as an end product. It is expected to be so high that new plastic film products such as bin liners can be made from it.

Attero in de recycle keten

Plastics manufacturers are very concerned with sustainability. They therefore aim for a higher percentage of high-quality re-granulate in their products. Attero is therefore optimistic about Aganfoils' sales, as the plant will soon supply granulate with a very high purity. Good as a raw material for high-quality products, such as foils, pipes and specific applications in the automotive industry. Attero wants to move up the recycling chain. That is why we would also like to reprocess plastics ourselves.

Polymeren Recycling Plant, updates

Update April 2019
Plastics Recyling Show

This year too, Attero had a stand at the Plastics Recycling Show Europe in Amsterdam to promote our new PRP (Polymer Recycling plant) and specifically the InfiniteFilm LDPE regranulate. We enjoyed an extremely successful show with plenty of international interest. The world of business is increasingly taking on the mantle of an important player in sustainability. By using our InfiniteFilm LDPE regranulate, this becomes tangible and visible for its clients in the form of new end products.

Update 15 March 2019
Opening PRP

On the 15th of March, the PRP was opened by the First Vice-President of the European Commission, Mr Frans Timmermans. During the opening, we presented the following animation.

Update March 2019
Newsletters

We regularly send newsletters to our clients and business contacts. If you would like to receive these newsletters.

Update February 2019
Attero wins The Circular Award Business

Together with 120 other contestants Attero had applied to win a Circular Award during the National Conference on the Circular Economy which was organized by the Ministry of Infrastructure & Water Affairs and the Ministry of Economic Affairs & Climate and attended by Secretary of State Stientje van Veldhoven and Minister Sigrid Kaag. Attero won the Circular Award Business in the category Plastics for Attero’s new Polymer Recycling Plant (PRP, also known as project AGANFOILS). We were therefore asked to pitch our innovation during the Conference to an audience of 700 people from the Ministries, businesses, education and NGO’s. We explained the unique combination of technologies and expressed our thanks for support by the LIFE programme. Since the circular economy cannot be realized by Attero alone, we also explained our new circular project with our partners Pokon Naturado, Oerlemans Packaging, Dow, TU/e en TUSTI to jointly produce compost bags for consumers from the LDPE regranulate from the PRP.

Update November 2018
Timelaps

This time lapse shows the progress of the construction over the past two years. Click here to see the timelaps.