Erema and Sipa's Xtreme Renew Recycling Technology Wins World Packaging Award

Erema, Sipa, Kyoei Industry and Suntory were presented with a World Star Packaging Award for its Xtreme Renew flakes to preform system, which directly produces new, food-grade 100 percent rPET preforms from recycled PET flakes in a single process step. 

The World Star Packaging Award recognizes packaging solutions from around the world that set international standards for the packaging industry due to its design or the way its manufactured.

The joint development of the process was initiated in 2014 by Kyoei Industry and Suntory. The process is based on the combination of Erema’s Vacurema bottle to bottle technology which has been enhanced for this application with Sipa’s Xtreme Renew Preform production system. This plant network produces new, food-grade PET preforms directly from PET flakes. The system has been in operation at Kyoei Industry in Kasama (Japan) for almost a year and the annual production capacity of this plant is 300 million containers. The customer for this output is the Japanese drinks manufacturer Suntory.

The combination of four process steps—decontamination, IV stabilization, melt filtration and injection stamping—in one system reportedly reduces energy consumption by 30% compared to conventional systems. Since no rPET pellets are produced, additional dryers and storage areas are no longer necessary.