Starlinger plastics reprocessing system on the job in Turkey

A plastics reprocessing line provided by Austria-based Starlinger & Co. GmbH has been up and running since this September at a recycling facility in Basiskele, Turkey, operated by the Tanrikulu Group of Cos.

The system features Starlinger’s high-vacuum degassing unit, the recoSTAR 215 C-VAC, which has a production capacity of 2 metric tons of plastic pellets per hour and processes postconsumer high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP) bottle flakes.

The line also is equipped with a SMART feeder designed to ensure ideal material preparation prior to extrusion, effectively drying and homogenizing the input material, according to Starlinger.

“The Starlinger recoSTAR dynamic recycling lines have been designed with the focus on processing contaminated and highly humid postconsumer plastic [materials],” says Paul Niedl, commercial head of Starlinger recycling technology.

“The elaborate construction of the SMART feeder allows the recycling of materials with higher levels of humidity. In combination with Starlinger’s Dynamic Automation Package, which regulates the ideal operating point, it achieves a significant output increase," Niedl adds.

The C-VAC degassing unit includes what Starlinger calls a “modern cascade setup [that] takes care of volatile contaminants after the main extruder, effectively removing them by expanding the melt surface by 300 percent.”

The Tanrikulu Recycling business unit supplies the produced recycled-content granulate to the Turkish plastic product manufacturing industry, says Starlinger. While the recycled PP is used mainly to produce automobile plastic parts, furniture, toys and other injection molding products, as well as for pallets, buckets or packaging films, the recycled HDPE is used for pipes, bottles, plastic bags and similar products.

“At Tanrikulu, we try to improve ourselves at every opportunity we get,” says Izzet Tanrikulu, general manager of Tanrikulu Group of Companies. “For that, we continuously upgrade our production equipment. To ensure the best regranulate quality, the postconsumer input material passes metal detectors and filtration systems before being washed and sorted. The excellent vacuum degassing capacity of the Starlinger line combined with its high production output helps us to achieve best product quality at favorable costs, ensuring continuous supply of high-quality PP and polytehylene regranulate to our customers.”

Tanrikulu Recycling has 10 plastics recycling and manufacturing plants in various parts of Kocaeli Province in Turkey, which borders the Istanbul metropolitan area. Tanrikulu originally started out in 1989 in Istanbul recycling paper, glass and metal. In 2006 the company began to produce regranulate from plastic scrap and diversified by adding a facility for the production of PET sheet in 2014. Since then, Tanrikulu has become “one of the leading plastics recycling enterprises in Turkey and exports 50 percent of its PET sheet products to overseas markets,” according to Starlinger.