K’22 PARTNERSHIP: SABIC FUNCTIONAL FORMS AND EXACT FOR SUSTAINABILITY
13 octubre 2022

Since its origins, EXACT has been at the forefront against plastic waste. Our granulators are in fact the ideal tool to recover and reuse, in a virtuous way during the production cycle, both thermoplastic scraps (edge trims) and non-compliant/production defect waste reels, etc.

Given this premise, during the days of the K’22 fair in Düsseldorf, we certainly could not present our machines by consuming virgin plastic film, for the sole purpose of showing them in operation.  Rather, thanks to the collaboration of SABIC Functional Forms business (https://www.sabic.com/ff), an EXACT customer moved by the same spirit of sustainability and circularity that already recovers edge trim with our technology, the granulators that will be exhibited during K’22, will recover real SABIC off-spec production (LEXAN™ film: https://ff.sabic.eu/en/product/lexan-film). At the end of recovery, the plastic film transformed into EXACT chips will be reused by SABIC for its own production purposes, thus reducing the overall carbon footprint of all participants in the operation.

EXACT’s claim for 2022, “A bright future rests on solid roots”, thus finds complete fulfillment in this collaboration with virtuous and concretely active partners in the processes of sustainability and recovery.

 

In closing, SABIC has created a flyer, including workflow process, that will be displayed on our granulators during the days of the fair.

 

Under the umbrella of the SABIC sustainability program, Functional Forms is pursuing multiple options to reduce its carbon footprint and feedstock usage.

One of the initiatives is the inline recovery of film trims into reusable material; during the production of LEXAN film, the edges of the web are trimmed off to meet the desired product width & roll winding quality. SABIC works together with EXACT on implementing their cold system granulation process. The technology enables an inline recovery of the edge trims into reusable material.

The inline recovery using the EXACT cold system granulation process brings three main advantages versus the typical offline pelletizing processes:

1 Minimized risk of cross contamination through a mix up of waste streams,

2 No transformations due to secondary thermal processes,

3 Lower energy consumption versus secondary thermal processes,

The improved quality of the recovered material allows for usage into various products offered by SABIC.

The result is a reduction in waste, feed stock utilization and energy consumption