Germany – A recycling test lab is being built by Coperion GmbH at its Niederbiegen/Weingarten production facility in Germany.
The future Coperion Recycling Innovation Center will be constructed close to the company’s current Bulk Solids Handling Test Center. Over the past few years, a clear trend toward increased recycling has emerged, driven by growing demands for a circular plastics economy on a global scale. Customers will have access to the facility where they can work with Coperion’s experts to develop and test brand-new, environmentally friendly products and recycling techniques. The facility will include all necessary recycling process stages, such as material conveying, feeding, extrusion, pelletizing, and material postprocessing. In this new Recycling Innovation Center, Coperion will also carry out its own plastics recycling research projects.
With this new addition, the company will increase its test lab capacities by up to 5,000 m2 (53,819 ft2) in Germany alone, demonstrating the importance of Coperion’s investment in innovation and highlighting its research and development activities, especially with regard to sustainability-related issues.
Central role in sustainability
The plastics industry has long understood that more environmentally friendly production is necessary in light of evolving end-user consumer habits and globally tightening environmental regulations. Recycling is essential to achieving this objective. Around the world, a lot of plastics treatment and processing operations are focusing on how recycling can be implemented practically and on an industrial scale. In the new Coperion Recycling Innovation Center, practical approaches to solutions for every stage of the recycling process will be tested and developed in conjunction with customers from all over the world to address this question specifically for each customer. Then, from a single source, these solutions can be successfully implemented in production.
