Our Joint Venture REKS LLC, a recycling plant focused on sorting, separating, washing and recycling plastic waste streams from – among others – supermarket chains, retailers and distribution centers, started the first production of regranulate in August.
We may already conclude that the results are phenomenal. The joint efforts from KRAS Recycling, KIVO and our local Kosovar partners to build a state-of-the-art recycling plant in a short period of time and to implement a process that is completely new to a country like Kosovo were fully rewarded.
REKS focusses particularly on recycling LDPE and LLDPE foils. The production line has been especially designed to also handle large quantities of stretch film. By manually separating unprinted transparent LDPE films without labels, films with labels, stretch films, light printed films and heavily printed / coloured films, REKS is able to extract the highest possible qualities of transparent LDPE and LLDPE recycled raw materials from Post Consumer Recycled content (PCR) to produce.
The excellent quality makes it possible to create fully circular flows (closed loops) through alliances with supermarkets and retailers, recyclers (such as KRAS), plastic producers (including ourselves) and the packaging industry. Consider, for example, shrink films, stretch films and collection bags that after retailers and distribution centres uses them, are collected by KRAS, sorted and processed into new raw material by REKS and then reused by KIVO and partners in the production of new shrink films, stretch films and collection bags.
© REKS LLC, all rights reserved.
REKS processes waste streams from Europe and the Balkan region. The current capacity is 10,000 tons per year with the aim of already doubling it by the end of 2020. Previously, these waste streams were shipped in huge quantities from Europe to Asia, or processed to lower quality (les homogeneous) regranules within Europe. Now REKS offers with this capacity an answer to the increased export problem and the increasing need for high-quality plastic packaging with recycled content. The factory meets all high European requirements for, e.g. water management, energy management, health and safety requirements, REACH and processing of residual waste. Processes to make the Eucertplast factory certified have therefore been set in motion. KIVO already produces clear shrink films with >50% PCR (recycled raw materials from REKS) with a thinkness of less than 35 my, potting soil films with even 80% PCR from REKS and transparent and translucent collection bags of as much as 99% PCR.
As already mentioned, KIVO is committed to making plastic packaging more sustainable. The number of applications with raw materials from REKS will therefore only increase.
Watch the company film of REKS LLC below.
If you are also interested in what KIVO is able to do for your company, please do not hesitate to contact us.