Inauguration of the SITE ZERO plastics sorting plant in Motala, Sweden
Motala. Svensk Plaståtervinning celebrated the official opening of the SITE ZERO plastics sorting plant in Motala, Sweden, on 15 November 2023 together with guests from politics, business and the waste and recycling industry.
Over the past two years, Sutco RecyclingTechnik GmbH and its subsidiary Sutco Sweden have built one of the most advanced plants in the field of sorting post-consumer packaging. "This plant is one of the first of its kind. It produces first-class material qualities while reducing the ecological footprint," explained Mattias Philipsson, CEO of the Swedish company Svensk Plaståtervinning and operator of the plant. "With innovative technology, Sweden is taking the next step towards a circular economy."
Motala I, which was also built by Sutco, went into operation back in 2019. Now, with the completion of Motala II, the two plants form SITE ZERO are on an area of 60,000 square metres. Thanks to highly developed technology and a sophisticated sorting process, the plant achieves the highest levels of purity.
In co-operation with Svensk Plaståtervinning and the experienced partners TOMRA and Mepex Consult, Sutco has developed and built SITE ZERO, one of the world's most advanced systems in the field of polymer sorting. The plant can process 42 tonnes of plastic per hour and separate the post-consumer waste into twelve fractions. "The aim is to further increase the rates of recovered recyclable materials in Sweden too. Currently, 33% of plastic packaging in Sweden is recycled, so there is still a lot of potential," explained Mattias Philipsson.
More than 500 tonnes of steel and 5,000 metres of conveyor technology were installed for SITE ZERO.
The high throughput is achieved by using state-of-the-art technology such as the 60 TOMRA autosort machines, screening drums, ballistic separators, the latest exhaust air technology, intelligent bunker management, fully automatic baling presses, compaction systems, digital process monitoring and other technologies.
The combination of sorting and process technology enables the collection of twelve fractions such as PE Film, PP Film, HDPE, PP, PET Bottles Transparent, PET Bottles Colour, PET Trays, EPS or even PS with an extremely high degree of purity. The cleanly recovered material fractions are sent from Motala to recyclers in the European Union. There are even solutions for the minimal sorting residues, which are further processed in an agglomeration process. The result is SITE ZERO, a pioneering system that successfully contributes to closing the plastic packaging loop.
"Together with our customer Svensk Plaståtervinning and the partners involved, we have created a state-of-the-art sorting technology," explained Michael Ludden, CEO of Sutco RecyclingTechnik, "SITE ZERO is a further contribution to a functioning circular economy!"
