It often pays to think big, and a vision of the future has certainly been on the mind of one PET recycling firm owner, after he laid out plans to turn it into a £100 million ($128m) revenue business within five years.
Arpan Dhanuka, who acquired QC Polymer earlier this year, is investing in new technology to increase the efficiency of the recycling process at the UK business. He claims the five-year plan is underscored by the ever-increasing global demand for rPET.
Also full of ideas is dissolution specialist Polystyvert, which has moved a step closer towards building a polystyrene recycling plant in Canada after securing $16m in funding from the likes of Infinity Recycling, Swen Blue Ocean, and Earth Foundry.
South of the border, Dow has expanded the capabilities at its Dow Pack Studios in Freeport, Texas, in order to help accelerate the development of circular packaging options. Additions to the site include a machine direction orientation unit to its nine-layer blown film line, and an upgraded cast film line. Staying in the US, packaging machinery maker Windmöller & Hölscher has broken ground on an expansion of its North American headquarters in Lincoln, Rhode Island. The two-phase plan includes a 12,000 sq ft increase in warehouse capacity.
Over in Asia, Borouge, in a consortium with ADNOC and Borealis, has signed a project collaboration agreement with China’s Wanhua Chemical Group and Wanrong New Material Technology for a feasibility study to develop a 1.6 million tonne per year polyolefin complex in Fuzhou, Fujian Province.
There was also plenty to shake on at chemicals company Aramco last month, which is to become the majority shareholder of Rabigh Refining and Petrochemical Company after agreeing to acquire an additional stake of approximately 22.5 per cent. Upon completion of the $702m transaction, Aramco will hold an equity stake of around 60 per cent.
A major deal at the other end of the supply chain concerned food giant Mars, after it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Kellanova, which used to be part of the Kellogg Company. Mars is to pay $35.9 billion for the North American producer of plant-based and frozen breakfast foods.
In the machinery sector, German financial investor Orlando Capital completed the acquisition of troubled thermoforming machinery supplier Illig. The thermoforming equipment supplier, now known as Illig Packaging Solutions, plans to intensify its sales activities globally on the back of the deal. Auxiliary systems manufacturer Piovan, meanwhile, has been sold to a subsidiary of Italian private equity firm Investindustrial for around €438m ($476m).
Another large M&A deal involved US-based Silgan Holdings signing an agreement to acquire caps and closures specialist Weener Plastics for €838m ($909m). The acquisition will enable Silgan to make further inroads into the global plastics dispensing and speciality closures market. Also of note was administrators completing the sale of flexible packaging converter Sirane to Coppice Alupack for an undisclosed sum. Sirane went into administration in July.
Not all agreements work out, however. ADM and LG Chem last month announced they have pulled the plug on a joint polylactic acid (PLA) production site. With construction costs skyrocketing, the companies said that the projects to build production facilities for PLA and lactic acid no longer represented good value.
Better PLA-related news came from emerging producer Emirates Biotech, which further strengthened its leadership team a month after appointing former NatureWorks boss Marc Verbruggen as its chief executive. François de Bie has been named chief commercial officer, Aman Kulshrestha has been appointed chief technology officer, and Margrete Wie joins as head of finance of the UAE-based business.
The mechanical recycling sector also received a boost last month, after the new UK government pledged to bring forward the implementation of a deposit return scheme (DRS) for beverage containers from the October 2027 deadline given by the previous administration. It comes as a survey commissioned by US beverage company CG Roxane found that nearly half of Americans would like to see tethered caps on plastics beverage containers.
Advocates of reusable packaging had something to cheer as well, with Ocado Retail revealing it has linked up with the UK Refill Coalition to launch an online reusable packaging scheme in an effort to reduce the amount of single-use packaging from weekly grocery shops.
And finally…
In one of the more unlikely fallouts of Ireland’s newly introduced DRS, Dublin City Council is set to trial special recycling trays on public bins to discourage people trawling through the rubbish in search of valuable plastics bottles and aluminium cans. With deposited bottles worth 15-25 cents each, people can pick up the used bottles from the trays, rather than putting their health at risk by scavenging through the bins. Perhaps a greater roll out of dedicated reverse vending machines wouldn’t go amiss either.
By Noli Dinkovski
