Good practice:

AMP Recycling, Italian example of whole r-PET's supply chain

The company began producing plastic containers in the early 1970s, primarily for the horticultural segment, and has gone on to become an industry leader on both a National and European-wide scale.
Towards the end of 2007, AMP even inaugurated a new 22,000 m2 factory on a 36,000 m2 lot, in order to ensure sufficient space for the rationalization of all the company’s production activities, by integrating its thermoforming and extrusion processes with a considerable plastic recycling plant dedicated to the recovery of PET from sorted waste collection.
With its two divisions, ILIP and MP3, I.L.P.A. S.p.A. boasts leadership positions on a European-wide scale in the segment of thermoformed plastic food packaging, as well as in the segment of semi-finished products (extruded plastic sheets made from various types of plastic raw materials) for food, non-food, and automotive applications.
For I.L.P.A. S.p.A., the complete management of AMP Recycling and the production facility in Ferrara (ITA) represents a vertical integration of the r-PET supply chain.
I.L.P.A. S.p.A. is currently the only European company that’s capable of guaranteeing complete control over the entire process: from the receipt of the post-consumer material, to the subsequent selection, washing, grinding and extrusion, and ultimately to the production by thermoforming of food packaging materials in r-PET.

Up to now, ILPA capital expenditure in recycling can be estimated in 8 million euro. Investment estimation includes: infrastructures, ancillaries and industrial plant, 45 people, has been working at and for the project since the beginning.

This good practice have recently won Legambiente Award for Circular Economy. The great experience of AMP in this sector has influenced and will influence the public policies. The regional policies on plastic material are improving by smoothing operational difficulties encountered by AMP.

The extrusion process consists in the transformation of the flakes into a sheet using a complex system which doses the raw material, brings it to high temperature, mechanically filters it in the molten state, and extrudes the mass through a flat head.

This is a great example of sustainalble Development: ILPA’s three main commitments are:

1. REDUCE packaging weight (DOWNGAUGING) without compromising the safety and shelf life of the packaged products. ILIP promotes more sustainable andinnovative packaging weight and improve shelf life with MAP

2. RECYCLING has become economically and environmentally sustainable. ILIP is
part of I.L.P.A. vertical integration of the r-PET supply chain: a CLOSED LOOP SYSTEM from post consumer water bottles to food packaging

3. RENEWABLE RESOURCES: bioplastics, plastics from plant are renewable and compostable. ILIP is the only European manufacturer with complete ranges of disposable tableware, foodservice packaging and fresh produce packaging made with PLA