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| Issue date:21/08/2009 |
| ATA Journal for Asia on Textile & Apparel - Aug 2009 Issue |
| Source:Journal for Asia on Textile & Apparel |
| Adrian Wilson |
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| The recycled polyester industry continues to face many hurdles, despite the drive towards eco-friendlier products. |
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| Nilit EcoCare recycled yarns are produced from the waste of other polymers. |
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While recycled polyester fibre is said to be comparable in performance to virgin fibre for many products, it still can’t be sold at a premium or even comparable price in Europe.
On one level, this is very surprising, given the current preoccupation with sustainable production methods and processes, and the demand by consumers for greener products. Organic cotton, for example – backed by well-structured and politically and media-active organisations, and with an anti-poverty message, in addition to an environmental one – sells at well over the price of standard cotton.
The reality of the commodity polyester fibre market is that there is huge over-capacity, mostly in China as well as other Asian countries, and price dominates buying decisions beyond any other consideration.
Colin Purvis: “Many investors assumed market growth would continue at high levels for ever, but it never does!” |
Speaking at the China International Man-made Fibre Conference in June 2009, Colin Purvis, Director General of CIRFS, the European man-made fibre industry, said that for several fibre types – especially polyester – there was global overcapacity even before recession hit.
“Many new plants have been built without proper market analysis and many investors assumed market growth would continue at high levels for ever,” he said, “but it never does!”
At the same time, older capacity is not being removed and the result has been a struggle for market share, low capacity utilisation and financial losses.
“Recession has made the over-capacity even worse,” Mr Purvis noted, adding that dumping of man-made fibres is widespread, mainly as a result of the global over-capacity.
Recycled PET struggling with downward price pressure
In Europe, recycled polyester generally sells at prices of between 80-90% of its virgin equivalent, according to Cristinel Dobrotã, general manager of Romanian recycled polyester producer GreenFiber, and also of the PET bottle recycling company Greentech.
“People are beginning to understand that our recycled fibre is just as good as virgin polyester, but the market is still of the opinion that it should be cheaper,” he said. “We are pretty far away from such considerations as environmental benefits.”
Greenfiber has two polyester spinning plants based at Buzau and Lasi in Romania, with a combined annual output of 50,000 tonnes – all of which is 100% recycled from around 65,000 tonnes of PET collected by sister company Greentech.
While in Romania itself, around 110,000 tonnes of PET waste is generated, Greentech also has collection posts in the neighbouring countries of Serbia, Ukraine and Greece.
Its customers are mainly in Germany, Italy, France and Belgium, and largely in the nonwovens field. Key product types are regular staple fibre, both solid and solid and siliconized, hollow staple fibre, either siliconized or conjugated siliconized, and special types including antibacterial, flame retardant and hydophilic fibres.
GreenFiber’s close proximity to the European market is another environmental benefit, in reducing transportation costs, but Mr Dobrotã is clear about what is now necessary.
“There needs to be new legislation to help us,” he said. “There have to be the same rules for everybody to protect the European industry.”
Fighting the corner for recycled PET products is Petcore, a non-profit European trade association based in Brussels, Belgium. Its mission focuses on sustainable growth for post consumer PET collection whilst supporting all PET recycling processes as a key integrated part of European Plastics Waste Management initiatives.
In a recent paper presented at the Identiplast 2009 conference in Brussels, Petcore’s chairman Roberto Bertaggia said that the collection of recycled PET (RPET) has increased by an average of 20% per year in Europe since Petcore began collecting data in 1993. In 2007, 1.13 million tonnes were collected but growth is likely to slow down in the future.
European PET recyclers saw their margins decrease by more than 30% in 2008 due to low recyclate prices in relation to virgin PET prices, coupled with higher cash costs of manufacturing RPET.
The security of supply of baled bottles has also been a problem for recyclers – exports of 176, 000 tonnes of PET bales from Europe (the majority of these to China) where made in 2007, the majority to China. The Chinese market dried up almost completely towards the end of 2008, although imports have now resumed at a slower rate.
Investment hindered by limited returns
“This uncertainty, coupled with low margins, means that investment in new recycling capacity in Europe is not attractive,” said Mr Bertaggia, “but it is vital that PET recycling continues to grow, if the requirements of the European Waste Framework Directive are to be met.”
Recyclers have to add extra cleaning stages to their processes to meet the high quality standards demanded for food contact, he added.
“These cleaning stages are expensive and it is evident that food contact RPET could cost more to produce than virgin PET. In the current economic environment food contact RPET could have to be priced at a higher level than virgin PET thus, no matter how much stakeholders would like the price of recycle content resin to be below virgin, a new, sustainable business model has to be considered.”
Current sustainable recycling chains are supported by a variety of economic instruments which differ from country to country. With PET resin prices currently at below cash cost, Petcore now believes the only way that the recycling chain can grow or even be sustained is by:
‧ Increasing income for collection and recycling.
‧ Developing more effective recycling logistics such as taking out stages, transportation and costs, and business rationalisation.
‧ Lobbying for legislation to harmonise collection schemes, both nationally and on a European basis.
‧ Understanding that the cost of being sustainable in the current environment means that recycle content resins could be at a higher price than virgin.
“All stakeholders in the recycling value chain – including consumers and brand owners – have a responsibility to ensure that recycling remains profitable along the chain – even in downturns,” Mr Bertaggia concluded.
Petcore has also recently had to respond to charges that PET bottles can actually be damaging to both health and the environment, notably publicity given to a study that found a substance present in parts per trillion – against the European Food Safety Authority’s recent safe limit in parts per billion – which should actually have provoked a positive reaction.
“There are many myths about PET and its contents,” says Petcore. “The most recent one associated PET with environmental oestrogens. Considerable research has been conducted with no evidence of danger to reproduction or reproductive development from PET or any of its raw materials. PET and its raw materials are not made from phthalates.
“There may be some confusion because the name sounds similar to the very safe terephthalates and isophthalates, but these are very different substances.”
Newest recycled nylon yarns showcased at Techtextil Frankfurt
Meanwhile, at the recent Techtextil show in Frankfurt this June, Japan’s Teijin Group promoted a range of environmentally friendly new fibres and Israel’s Nilit introduced its new EcoCare recycled nylon yarns.
Teijin promoted a range of eco-friendly new fibres at Techtextil 2009 |
Teijin’s Biofront is a heat resistant, corn-based sustainable polymer designed for use in the automotive industry, apparel and accessories sectors. The main innovation compared with other polylactide (PLA)-based textiles is that Biofront is relatively heat-resistant with a melting point of 210°C, which is significantly higher than the 170°C melting point of conventional PLA polymers.
This enables Biofront fabrics and yarns to undergo high-temperature, high-pressure dyeing as well as to produce products that offer the levels of quality and durability demanded of automotive interior materials.
Teijin’s Purity is a heavy-metal-free polyester material with potential applications including food-contact products such as strainers and tea filters. The company first developed it back in 2001 using a special polymerisation catalyst composed mainly of non-toxic titanium, lowering the environmental impact of end products.
Nilit EcoCare recycled yarns are produced from the waste of other polymers |
According to Teijin, Purity has the same quality and nearly the same appearance as conventional polyester. Crucially, it does not have a yellow appearance like other non-antimony-based polyesters on the market, which often are limited to applications where the fibres are not visible. Purity is also free from hazardous elements such as chlorine, nor does it produce dioxin when burned.
Earlier in 2009, Nilit from Israel completed the scale-up of its EcoCare recycled nylon (polyamide 6) yarns, which are produced from the waste of other polymers.
“Nilit has long recycled its yarn waste to produce polyamide chips through a re-melting process,” said Fabio Kahn, Nilit’s Fibers Division Director. “This process reduces the energy consumption compared to fibre spun from virgin polymers, which the company uses in compounds for plastic applications. However, with increasing demand for eco-friendly yarns and products, we decided to develop yarn spun primarily from this recycled polymer.”
“We overcame the variability in efficiency and low dye affinity by mixing 90% of the recycled polymer with 10% of our deep dye polymer to achieve a rich colour,” added Alon Weiser, Nilit’s Research Development and Technical Service Manager. “The yarns have excellent uniformity and colour depth, which makes them well suited for seamless apparel, legwear and for other textile end-uses.”
With this development, Nilit says it has significantly shortened the processing chain – especially in high energy-consuming stages such as evaporation. In addition, the process does not require the use of autoclaves.
In addition to recycling yarn waste at its own recycling facility, Nilit captures and reuses energy from its facilities for use in manufacturing processes. Company engineers have designed systems to significantly reduce sulphur levels and low-emission burners have replaced plant boilers.
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| Copyright © Adsale Publishing Limited. Any party needs to reprint any part of the content should get the written approval from Adsale Publishing Ltd and quote the source "ATA Journal for Asia on Textile & Apparel", Adsale Textile English Website - www.AdsaleATA.com. We reserve the right to take legal action against any party who reprints any part of this article without acknowledgement. For enquiry, please contact Editorial Department. |
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