Reduction, Reuse e Recycle

The containers for fish transport studied by the Italian company : take-up less space, than those in polystyrene, and can be reused.

The concept of circular economy is nowadays transversal to different productive sectors, including that of companies that make machines for plastic processing. Someone knew the added value of recycling even before it became a recurrent theme in the industry. "Since I was a little boy, my father taught me that the plastic objects, produced by the machines he sold, could be recycled, if properly arranged and treated, to produce new plastic objects, a sort of circular economy in its nascent stage.

Today I and my brothers, following the footsteps traced by our father, we dedicate a lot of resources to the development of new technologies, equipments, patents for the recycling and the re-use of plastic materials ».

To speak is Fabio Terragni, managing director of Agripak Srl, a company based in Milan, founded by Marco Terragni, who began his working experience with Covema in 1953 in the processing machinery sector of plastics. «One of the technologies developed by our family is that for the extrusion of polypropylene alveolar sheets, which my father began to develop in the early Seventy years and which he then baptized as "Cartonplast” extrusion lines.

His vision was to create an innovative material that could be used to produce alternative boxes to those of cardboard and for this reason he began to create a series of accessory machines ready to transform “Cartonplast” into boxes ».

Over the years, the technology of the Cartonplast extrusion lines has been developed to increase their efficiency and production capacity. «Today, we are ready to offer Cartonplast lines with three meters width and an hourly production of 1000 kg/h. We have re-designed the extruders in order to be able to process recycled material and we have implemented co-extrusion systems to prepare a small functional barrier layer suitable for food contact, in case of recycled materials use». A constant element of this Corporate development is the ecological theme. “We didn't just introduce innovation in the extrusion lines, we did also use so many resources in the development of a wide range of accessory machines for the Cartonplast extrusion lines, for the production of : boxes, box-pallets, pallets, inter-layer pads.

At each stage, we apply the rule of the three “r”: reduction, reuse and recycling ".» 
Cartonplast packaging can be reused upto a hundred times, after which it can be returned to the seller for recycling, in order to start producing new packagings.
«We can offer machines for alveolar sheet perimeter welding and punching, able to trap the air inside the alveolar profile itself, providing in this way not only a greater resistance to the end-product, but also the consequent possibility to reduce the weight of the alveolar sheet used. Having the perimeter perfectly welded, thus avoiding any dust or impurities to be able to enter the alveoli/flutes,  here we can think we can reuse the packaging and submit it to a washing and/or sanitizing, if necessary». The same technology can be applied for the production of cartonplast interlayer-pads, box-pallets and pallets, which can be reused several times.

«We stand out because we are the only ones to have vertically integrated the extrusion technology and that of the converting of polypropylene alveolar sheets. This allowed us to perfect specific parts of our extrusion lines so to obtain alveolar sheet able to optimize the production of highly performing packaging.
All this, to deliver an eco-circular packaging for an eco-sustainable world to future generations".
Agripak is able to offer a first-level production range, consisting of 25 models and 22 variants, grouped into extrusion, converting and thermoforming families.
«Our turnkey service focuses on the final product, allowing our customers all over the world to produce more than 70 products in 
13 different business sectors.
We are therefore ready to offer our customer a 360 degree know-how that includes: the supply of any line/machine for extrusion, converting, and thermoforming, completely automated on request, as well as all the technology of the production flow, acting as general contractor on any customer’s specific project ".
 

OUR MISSION: to deliver an eco-circular packaging for an eco-sustainable world to future generations
 

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Over sixty years of experience in the sector lead to innovative choices, consistent  with the circular economy principles. As Fabio Terragni, at the helm of Agripak, tells : «We have developed hollow profiles specific for each branch of application, we have introduced the foaming technology not only to reduce weight, but also to improve the performance of the hollow profiles in some applications. Finally, the need to recycle packaging in the extrusion cycle, led us to modify the group of extrusion, filter, mixer and we have introduced also the use of in-line viscometers in order to optimize the mix of raw materials used. All this has allowed us the development of a complete technology at the service of the circular economy, a theme that was already dear to the first generation who founded the company».

(March 2021 MECCANICA - Enclosure of "Il Giornale" - Patrizia Riso)

Complete italian article in PDF