ALPLA Group

ALPLA Group signi­fi­cantly expands its PET recy­cling capa­city in Germany

The pack­a­ging and recy­cling spe­cia­list acquires Tex­plast and the joint ven­ture PET Recy­cling Team Wolfen

Hard, 7 March 2022 – The ALPLA Group has become one of the lar­gest PET recy­cling com­pa­nies in Ger­many. With the acqui­si­tion of the recy­cling com­pany Tex­plast from the FROMM Group and all of its shares in the joint ven­ture PET Recy­cling Team Wolfen, the inter­na­tional com­pany will increase its annual pro­ces­sing volume in Ger­many to 75,000 tonnes of PET bottles. 

ALPLA is streng­thening its efforts in the German recy­cling industry. With the com­plete acqui­si­tion of Tex­plast, a com­pany based in Bitterfeld-Wolfen and pre­viously part of the FROMM Group, as well as the joint ven­ture PET Recy­cling Team Wolfen, the inter­na­tional pack­a­ging solu­tions and recy­cling spe­cia­list is signi­fi­cantly expan­ding its capa­ci­ties. With this, ALPLA is inves­ting in the qua­lity and avai­la­bi­lity of PET recy­c­late for the German ‘bottle-to-bottle’ cycle.

Fol­lo­wing the acqui­si­tion of BTB Recy­cling in October 2021, ALPLA increased its pro­ces­sing volumes in Ger­many to a total of around 75,000 tonnes of PET input. This includes 55,000 tonnes by Tex­plast and PET Recy­cling Team Wolfen and 20,000 tonnes by BTB. ‘Our goal is the cycle from bottle to bottle. We are step­ping up our acti­vi­ties world­wide to meet gro­wing demand for post-consumer recy­c­late. This invest­ment will streng­then our posi­tion in the German market and gua­rantee high qua­lity and avai­la­bi­lity of the mate­rial for our cus­to­mers,’ ALPLA CEO Philipp Lehner explains.

Con­ti­nua­tion of a suc­cessful collaboration
Tex­plast, founded in 1992, pro­duces PET pel­lets and flakes from used PET bot­tles. The pel­lets are pri­ma­rily used for pre­forms for new PET bot­tles. The colourful PET flakes pro­duced during the pro­cess are used by the pack­a­ging manu­fac­turer FROMM to pro­duce packing strap. However, the focus has incre­asingly shifted towards the bottle cycle in recent years.

The long-term, and suc­cessful, col­la­bo­ra­tion with the FROMM Group was the per­fect basis for this deve­lo­p­ment. The acqui­si­tion enabled us to increase our capa­city quickly and effi­ci­ently. And this will also help us to secure pro­duc­tion for both sides in the future,’ says Georg Lässer, Head of Recy­cling at ALPLA. The colourful flakes will also be sup­plied exclu­si­vely to FROMM in the future. ‘We have a highly moti­vated, fully func­tional team and we are proud to wel­come all 125 Tex­plast employees into the ALPLA family,’ Lässer adds.

Rico Seiler, Mana­ging Director of Tex­plast GmbH, on the acqui­si­tion: ‘The change in owner­ship under­lines the trans­for­ma­tion of Tex­plast from a mate­rial sup­plier for pla­stic strap­ping to a key player in the bottle cycle. With the new owners, the com­pany will be able to fulfil its poten­tial in this field even more efficiently.

PET Recy­cling Team Wolfen spe­cia­lises in the recy­cling of PET bot­tles from ‘yellow bag’ – German bin for house­hold recy­cl­ables. These are returned from house­hold coll­ec­tion to the recy­cling loop. The sorting and pro­ces­sing sys­tems at Texplast’s site in Wolfen, which are unique world­wide, were set up in 2019.

The acqui­si­tion was offi­ci­ally fina­lised on 25 February 2022. The par­ties have agreed not to dis­c­lose the purchase price or any fur­ther details. The acqui­si­tion is sub­ject to the legal and regu­la­tory appr­oval of the com­pe­tent com­pe­ti­tion authorities.

Global expan­sion of recy­cling activities
In early 2021, the ALPLA Group announced that it would invest an average of 50 mil­lion euros a year until 2025 in the ongoing expan­sion of its recy­cling acti­vi­ties. In par­ti­cular, it plans to glo­ba­lise its acti­vi­ties in the area of high-quality recy­clates in order to close the mate­rials cycle in as many regions as pos­sible. In total, the annual pro­duc­tion capa­city of ALPLA’s recy­cling com­pa­nies, joint ven­tures and col­la­bo­ra­tions amounts to appro­xi­m­ately 203,000 tonnes of rPET (recy­cled PET) and 74,000 tonnes of rHDPE (recy­cled HDPE).

 

About the ALPLA Group
ALPLA is one of the leading companies involved in plastic packaging. Around 22,100 employees worldwide produce custom-made packaging systems, bottles, closures and moulded parts at 177 sites across 45 countries. The high-quality packaging is used in a wide range of areas, including for food and drinks, cosmetics and care products, household cleaning products, detergents and cleaning agents, pharmaceutical products, engine oils and lubricants.

ALPLA operates recycling plants for PET and HDPE in Austria, Germany, Poland, Mexico, Italy and Spain. Other projects are being carried out in other places around the world.

 

Infor­ma­tion for editorial
ALPLA, Erik Nielsen (Senior Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Manager), Tel.: +43 (0)6021 701, email: erik.nielsen@alpla.com
Pzwei. Pres­se­ar­beit, Joshua Köb, Tel.: +43 (0)44715 22, email: joshua.koeb@pzwei.at