Starlinger Viscotec, Greiner and PET-MAN establish rPET milk model for Austrian schools

01 Sep 2021 --- Austrian packaging companies Starlinger Viscotec, Greiner Packaging and PET-MAN have joined forces to develop milk cups for kindergarteners and school children made entirely from unprinted, recycled PET (rPET).

The cups cost roughly the same as single-use polystyrene (PS) cups. With the environment in mind, creating new cups with rPET results in over 30 percent fewer CO2 emissions compared to reusable glass bottles. Moreover, the cups are lighter, made of less material and require less energy to be cleaned for recycling than glass.

Meanwhile, the lids are made of aluminum or paper, collected and recycled via the regular Austrian waste collection system.

Expansion potential
The pilot project has begun in Upper Austria, with upscaling planned nationwide. Julia Peherstorfer, sustainability and marketing manager at Starlinger Viscotec, tells PackagingInsights the project aims to go beyond just school milk applications and “show the possibilities of PET in dairy packaging.”

The companies are in advanced stages with national and multinational companies in the dairy business and other hot-fill applications, as well as further closed circuits on a national or local basis, she details.

“So far, all schools participating in the school milk project have been convinced of the advantages of the model, especially the reduced CO2 footprint of the rPET cups and the other disadvantages that come with the glass packaging.”

All schools participating in the milk project have been “convinced of the model’s advantages,” says Peherstorfer. Cogs in the machine
In this industry partnership, 18 local farmers supply approximately 100 schools with milk and yogurt, also collecting the used packaging afterward. The rPET cups are cleaned and recycled by Starlinger Viscotec.

The used cups are picked up weekly by a licensed waste management company and brought to a PET washing facility where the cups are washed and then shredded.

“The shredded material, known as flakes, are then cleaned and processed using viscotec technology. This rPET material will again be used to make cups for food packaging,” explains Herbert Hofbauer from Starlinger viscotec.

PET-MAN recycles the used rPET cups into sheets, which Greiner Packaging uses to thermoform new cups.

PET-MAN produces sheets from the washed PET flakes, which Greiner Packaging then thermoforms into new cups. rPET beverages making the rounds
With plastic’s reputation at stake amid increased anti-plastic sentiment, the wider beverage sector is making leaps toward rPET to propel a circular packaging economy.

Britvic is moving its Robinsons, Lipton Ice Tea and Drench 500 mL beverage bottles to 100 percent rPET, while Coca-Cola launched 0.4 L rPET bottles US-wide last month.

The environmental benefits of switching to rPET are multitude: KHS and Eckes-Granini also unveiled 100 percent rPET juice bottles, a move that will save over 4,000 metric tons of virgin PET and cut carbon emissions by around 8,000 tons annually.

Meanwhile, Slovenian mineral water company Donat replaced its translucent virgin PET and reusable glass bottles entirely with green rPET bottles, resulting in an annual saving of 98,000 KWh electricity, 12 metric tons of cleaning product and 90 percent carbon emission cuts.

By Anni Schleicher

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