POLICYCLE – More than just recycling

POLIFILM Group focuses on the establishment of a fourth subgroup

• POLIFILM establishes fourth subgroup POLICYCLE
• Expansion of recycling capacities and competences
• Establishment of circular flow system with customers and partners, first pilot projects started
• Recycling and return of regranulate even from adhesive films
• POLICYCLE exhibits at PRS Europe fair in Amsterdam

Recycling - this subject is on everyones agenda, whether politically, socially or on the consumer side. Especially for plastics processing companies, the reprocessing of used materials and the use of recyclates have gained immense importance in recent years.

How much is proven by POLIFILM, an internationally operating specialist for extrusion and protective film solutions. Since January 2023, all recycling activities of the group have been bundled in a separate subgroup. But the group, headquartered in Cologne, Germany, is going one step further. Under the umbrella of the newly founded POLICYCLE GmbH, the circular economy is to be actively promoted. "POLICYCLE - circularity by POLIFILM" is the guiding principle of the sub-group, which exists alongside the three well-known sub-groups POLIFILM EXTRUSION, POLIFILM PROTECTION and POLIFILM TRADING and accompanies the activities of these sub-groups in terms of recycling and regranulate return into the company's own products.

In addition to expanding existing recycling capacities and adding wash recycling technologies to the dry recycling process that has been established for more than 30 years, POLICYCLE is actively focusing on establishing material cycles for polyethylene-based films with partners and customers. "Recycling per se is nothing new for us, it has just become more presentable in recent years," says Christian Runkel, CEO of the POLIFILM Group. "What is indeed new, however, are the opportunities that arise from new process technologies and the intensive experience work gained over decades in the processing of recyclates in film products." Runkel is alluding to the competencies that make POLICYCLE special. "With us, POLIFILM, customers will get everything from a single source in the future." The group is complementing film production and recycling with POLICYCLE, after all, with the establishment of take-back concepts. "The ideal picture of the future is clear: to take back used films from our customers, recycle them, and ideally return the recyclate to the same or a similar high-quality film required by the customer." According to Runkel, there is still a lot of work to be done before this consistent equal recycling approach can be fulfilled.

However, initial pilot projects in which customer waste is recycled into film products for the customer are already underway. Moreover, POLIFILM is also recording its first successes in the processing of regenerates, which were previously considered to be difficult, into technically sophisticated films, such as the protective film solutions offered by the POLIFILM PROTECTION subgroup. "We are proud to say that we are already able to recycle the recovered regenerate from our adhesive-coated protective film waste back into them at a rate of up to 30%."

In order to realize all of this, the Group is actively investing in POLICYCLE, for example with the construction of new production sections at the Weißandt-Gölzau site as well as within the framework of internationalization plans for further recycling capacities. Interested parties can get a first impression of POLICYCLE at the PRSE Plastics Recycling Show Europe in Amsterdam from May 10 to 11, 2023. Here POLICYCLE will present itself at booth P23.