Sustainability
A World Without Waste
| AnaLaura Vera, Petra Rehmet
IPASA is working with KraussMaffei to increase the percentage of recycled material in beverage crates
What do you do with beverage crates that are broken? Make new ones, of course! Bottle caps also serve as a resource for production at IPASA in Mexico. KraussMaffei provides the processing technology needed for this: reliable injection molding machines, high-tech screws and APC plus for even greater process control. In an interview Aida Lopez, Investigation and Development Department, and Horacio Blanco, Quality and Productivity Department, from IPASA talk about the sustainable production.
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How did you get the idea to get more involved in the circular economy?
Aida Lopez
IPASA belongs to Arca Continental, the second-largest beverage bottling company in Latin America. So the world's best known manufacturers of soft drinks are among our customers, and they are working very hard to use recycled materials. Therefore, it is also our goal to continuously increase the percentage of recycled material in our beverage crates. By changing additives and material mixes, this year we want to create a product made 100% of recycled materials—while maintaining the same quality and durability. The client is one of the world's leading beverage manufacturers, which has devoted itself to the "World Without Waste" initiative.
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What is the greatest challenge here?
Horacio Blanco
Primarily adapting our processes, because we work with various materials and each one has to be handled differently. The beverage crates for soft drinks, for example, are made from damaged crates as well as caps from PET bottles contributed by our subsidiary PETstar. We regain polyethylene from these and process it. In the future, we are striving to use no new materials at all and pass the savings on to our customers.
World without waste:
IPASA strives for bottle crates made of 100 % recycled plastics, also including caps (Photo: IPASA).
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How is the industry responding to your efforts?
Aida Lopez
The Mexican packaging association (Asociación Mexicana de Envase y Embalaje) recently honored us as part of its competition for sustainable packaging because our development makes it possible to produce beverage crates with a high percentage of recycled material that are just as durable and rugged as before.
"A world without waste" is our focus (from left to right):
Horacio Blanco (Quality and Productivity Department), Humberto Delgado Mercado (Production and Maintenance Department) and Aida Lopez, (Investigation and Development Department) from IPASA
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How does KraussMaffei contribute to these projects?
Horacio Blanco
KraussMaffei provides support quite directly, for example, with customized system solutions including the right screws, which are tailored to various polymers. And, of course, with the APC plus machine function, which gives us even greater process control. This allows us to produce more easily and more cost-effectively. For example, compared to the previous systems, we cut down on energy requirements by approximately 40%. We value the flexibility of KraussMaffei machines, the advice we receive for our projects and the continuous support from planning to start of production. KraussMaffei is an important partner for us.
Excellent dynamics:
the GX series machines are ideal for transport packaging.
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How long have the two companies been working together?
Aida Lopez
We have known KraussMaffei since 1999 and, at that time with another company in the group, we bought some of the first KraussMaffei machines ever in Mexico. Since then, we have been very satisfied and are currently using 13 machines from the MX, GX and CX series. The clamping forces range from 3,500 to 23,000 kN and the shot weight ranges from 1 to 23.7 kg. To produce our soft drink crates, we use the machines from the GX and MX series with clamping forces from 8,500 to 10,000 kN.
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One more question about the current situation. Is COVID-19 hurting your business?
Horacio Blanco
Thankfully we did not have to shut down our production and are currently working with our full staff under the conditions viewed as "the new normal". KraussMaffei has helped us here, too, because if you know that the machines work well, it is easier even in times of crisis.
Contact
michael.schreyer@kraussmaffei.com