APPE awarded for recycled PET initiatives

The APPE initiative has been described as ‘an optimal sustainability programme​’ by Greener Package Awards judge Frank Perkowski of Business Development Advisory.

Greener Package Awards​

The awards are the first independent global competition focused on packaging sustainability, judged by a panel of industry experts.

The ‘Beyond the Package’ award is aimed at companies with packaging initiatives or processes that contribute to sustainability by going beyond the development of an individual package.

In total, the Greener Package Awards have five categories, FDA-regulated industries; Non-FDA-regulated industries; Transport/large-format packaging; Packaging machinery; and lastly, Beyond the Package Award.

“We are delighted to receive the Greener Package Award accolade​,” commented Martin Hargreaves, APPE’s General Manager. “Over the years, we have consistently demonstrated our commitment to environmental responsibility in many different ways… All of this clearly showcases the major role recycled PET can play in an effective sustainability programme​.

PET initiative​

A large aspect of APPE’s sustainability offering comes from its closed-loop bottle-to-bottle PET recycling plant in Beaune, France.

Established in 1998, the company expanded in 2008, to increase production capacity of rPET as per consumer demand, from 25,000 to 35,000 tonnes.

The company claims that the increased capacity means that approximately 720 million 25g PET bottles are being recycled each year, whilst the overall plant prevents 1. 8 billion bottles annually from going to landfill.

According to APPE the extra 10,000 tonnes will make 400 million bottles in 100% rPET or 1.6 billion bottles containing 25% rPET.

The 35,000 tonnes total capacity of the Beaune plant represents a reduction of 12,145 tonnes of Carbon equivalent – 44,572 CO2 equivalent – over the production and use of virgin resin.