Starlinger's Paul Niedl on why food-grade recycling is a race past the regulators : "Regulatory approval is the floor, not the finish line"
Paul Niedl, Commercial Head of Starlinger recycling technology
- © KellermayrHow has your product lineup changed over the past five years in response to material-specific requirements? Are you offering more specialised machines or fewer general-purpose models?
We at Starlinger try to meet all the requirements of the plastics recycling industry with our technologies. Our recoSTAR PET art bottle-to-bottle recycling process, for example, is tailored to produce top-quality food-contact rPET that meets the high standards in this field. For polyolefins, which are increasingly complex, our recoSTAR dynamic art systems offer versatile solutions for processing a wide range of materials reliably with only minor adjustments and highest quality output. Our systems are characterised by modular design, which allows customisation to the specific materials a recycler intends to process. A key part of our technology range is the pellet conditioning unit PCUplus, which can be added at the end of the recycling process. It removes remaining odours from the recycled material and enables its use in all applications – even in sensitive products like food packaging or cosmetics.
What all our systems have in common are their excellent energy efficiency combined with high throughputs, and our focus on delivering top-quality recycled material – no matter for which application.
What material presents the biggest technical challenge for extrusion equipment today, and why? What specific engineering modifications does it require?
Plastic packaging, as well as other products made of plastic, are becoming increasingly complex and demanding, driving the development of new materials and material blends—for example, highly filled plastics, high-performance polymers, or fibre-reinforced compounds. These materials challenge extrusion equipment because they are either thermally sensitive, highly viscous, or abrasive, and sometimes a combination of those. To handle such material properties, we construct mechanically robust machines using highly durable materials, specialised screw designs, and precise process control. This ensures a long equipment lifetime as well as consistently high process stability and product quality even with difficult-to-process materials.
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What's the cost difference between a food-grade PET extrusion line and a standard HDPE or PP line? How do you justify that investment to processors operating on thin margins?
As the technologies differ significantly, there is no point in directly comparing a food-grade PET recycling system with a standard HDPE recycling system. Also, the respective recycled material is sold at very different prices on the market. According to our experience, plastics recyclers know their situation very well and decide according to their market environment if they invest in a food-contact PET recycling system or a polyolefin recycling line, or both.
The EFSA and FDA approval processes are critical for food-contact recycling. How does designing equipment to meet these regulatory standards limit or influence your ability to handle other materials? Does achieving food-grade certification essentially lock you into material-specific designs?
We develop our machines so that they achieve approvals for different types of materials—for example, polypropylene and HDPE cap-to-cap recycling for food-contact packaging in addition to PET bottle-to-bottle applications. So they are not limited with regard to what materials they can process. We are also setting a special focus on keeping track of process parameters, ensure hygienic conditions, correct material handling, and traceability. That way, our systems stay flexible and can handle complex materials while meeting EFSA and FDA standards.
Brand owners like Coca-Cola and Unilever have increasingly strict requirements for recycled content quality. How are these downstream customer demands—beyond regulatory compliance—shaping extruder design? Are brand owner specifications becoming more important than the regulations themselves?
The requirements of national and international authorities such as FDA and EFSA will always be the minimum standard for the quality of the recycled materials produced on our systems. To stay competitive on international markets, however, our customers must meet the—in part—far more stringent conditions of individual brand owners. For us as a technology provider, it is thus very important that our technical developments also fulfil these high requirements.
Since the plastics industry never stands still, our technology also needs to keep evolving to meet higher contamination levels on the one hand, and increased quality requirements for recycled content on the other.Paul Niedl, Starlinger
How are emerging feedstocks—like pyrolysis oils from chemical recycling or mixed flexible packaging—forcing you to rethink traditional extruder design?
Since the plastics industry never stands still and new materials and blends are introduced constantly, our technology also needs to keep evolving to meet higher contamination levels on the one hand, and increased quality requirements for recycled content on the other. New materials are often more contaminated, so our systems must be able to handle higher impurity levels while withstanding increased mechanical demands. We continuously adapt parts of our recycling systems such as the degassing units, filters, or the odour reduction unit to ensure the systems can process contaminated material reliably and without interruptions and at the same time produce top-quality recycled plastics.
Looking three years ahead, do you see the industry moving toward greater specialisation, or will advances in technology allow for more flexible equipment that can truly handle multiple materials effectively?
I think we will see the industry moving in both directions. With recycling rates continuing to rise, the demand for higher quality recycled materials is increasing. Some applications will require specialised equipment, while technological advances will allow for more flexible systems that can reliably handle a wide range of materials with various degrees of humidity and contamination. We rely on more than 25 years of experience in plastics recycling technology—with this know-how, we are ready to take on the challenge.
