Post by TOMRA Recycling

PET food trays were long considered one of the toughest streams in plastics recycling. Today, they can stay in a continuous closed loop, reliably and at industrial scale. At Cirrec's plant in the Netherlands, part of Faerch Group, we supported the creation of a dedicated line to make this possible. The process starts with pre-sorting and continues through washing, drying, and multiple key TOMRA-powered flake sorting stages to achieve the required purity. Early on, INNOSORT™ FLAKE removes broad contamination, while AUTOSORT™ FLAKE delivers the precision needed for final purity levels. Post-consumer PET trays are anything but uniform: pots, tubs, multilayer films, different polymers and food residues are all mixed together. Handling this kind of input requires a robust and stable process, and that is what was implemented here. The result is a system that produces clear and coloured PET flakes suitable for new food-grade trays, runs at twice the previous capacity, and supports Faerch’s production with recycled content reaching up to 70 percent. We are proud of this collaboration that shows that advanced sorting can turn complex streams into reliable, high-value output for closed-loop recycling. Learn more in the comments below.

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