7 Figure Investment In Brand New Bandera Co-Extrusion Line
/Multi-million pound investment in brand new state of the art Bandera production line optimised for energy efficient production, significantly reducing the energy consumed per KG of polythene extruded and lines also specifically configured to be optimised for recycled material incorporation into technical products.
This 7 figure investment in a state-of-the-art co-extrusion line from Bandera in Italy, supported by the team at UK Extrusion is a major statement from Elite.
The line’s optimisation for recycled content has the added investment of a continuous filter changer section - this is because of Elite’s intention to adhere to a circular economy and run high percentages of recycled content in its technical blends. As a caveat, the recycled content has much higher levels of contamination than virgin plastic causing the filters to block up significantly quicker, meaning lines have to be taken down sometimes multiple times a day for filter changing. Elite has invested in continuous filter changing technology on this line with the intention to roll out more. With this technology the line does not need to stop to change the filter as there is a dual flow system, so whilst one of the stream’s filters is changed the material flows through the other stream, meaning production can remain uninterrupted. This is estimated to reduce the company’s internal plastic scrap by more than 100 tonnes a year when running the line 24/7, which also eliminates the energy used of running the scrap on the line and then having to recycle it.
All videos on this article are of the line running at Elite’s production site in Hereford.