Supermarket shoppers are all familiar with them: practical trays from which beverage bottles can be removed quickly and easily. They allow for efficient, space-saving, and safe transport of bottles and save supermarket employees the time-consuming task of putting them on the shelves. Taking a further step toward sustainability, Rauch Fruchtsäfte in the future will be using beverage trays made of 70% recycled PET. 

Waste acquires new value

Material taken from yellow bags is used for the beverage trays. In the course of a project, it was proven that rPET flakes can be produced from post-consumer material by means of thorough pre- and post-sorting followed by shredding and washing. From these flakes, a PET film (70% recycled material) is subsequently extruded, which is then thermoformed into rPET trays by the Greiner Packaging business unit Greiner Assistec. In terms of quality, the recycled trays are in no way inferior to beverage trays made of new material.

Promoting independence from the PET bottle flow

The rPET flakes are produced from input materials other than PET beverage bottles, such as cups, tubs, and trays. The project thus shows that it is possible to establish alternative PET value flows. After all, to produce packaging from recycled PET, the plastics industry today mainly uses rPET flakes obtained by recycling PET bottles. This “bottle flow” is already well established. The potential for recycling other PET packaging from the yellow bag, on the other hand, is not yet being exploited to any great extent. However, the aim is to establish corresponding recycling streams on a large scale in the future.

“For us, creating beverage trays from rPET material that does not come from the bottle flow is a great opportunity: On the one hand, it means we are focusing on a sustainable product. On the other hand, we are promoting a tray-to-tray cycle. As a beverage manufacturer, we are of course particularly keen to ensure that high-quality rPET from the bottle flow is also available for the production of new rPET bottles and that alternative forms of packaging are used for the manufacture of other products,” says Hanno Mandl, purchasing manager at Rauch Fruchtsäfte, about the implementation of the recycling trays.

Success thanks to expertise

Greiner Packaging can already look back on many years of experience in processing recycled PET for its packaging. In September 2022, the plastics expert announced the acquisition of a Serbian rPET flakes recycler, which now operates under the name Greiner Recycling. 

“By expanding a year ago, we sent a clear signal and underscored that we believe in the potential of rPET for a sustainable future of the packaging industry. Even then, it was our clear goal to drive recycling streams away from bottles. The project together with Rauch Fruchtsäfte is just one step on this path, to be followed by many more,” says Peter Fessl, Director Operations Recycling at Greiner Packaging.