Extrusion International 3-2025

44 Extrusion International 3/2025 PET-RECYCLING – CASE STUDY PET Recycling Quality taken to the Next Level Doğa PET, a new recycling venture by Doğa Holding, one of the largest conglomerates in Türkiye, is using TOMRA Recycling’s sensor-based sorting solutions to produce high-quality PET flakes and rPET granules which are suitable for food and textile applications. D oğa Holding has diversified its investment portfolio within Türkiye by making an impressive entry into the recycling sector. Doğa PET, a subsidiary of Doğa Holding, is using TOMRA’s sensor-based sorting ma- chines to produce premium quality PET flakes and rPET granules from post-consumer PET which are suitable for food and textile applications. Located in northwestern Türkiye, Doğa PET’s plant currently processes more than 4,200 tons of PET bottles monthly, producing 3,000 tons per month of PET flakes and 2,000 tons per month of rPET granules. The facility incorporates TOMRA’s full range of machines for plas- tics sorting: four of the company’s sorting all-rounder AUTOSORT™, as well as two INNOSORT™ FLAKE and two AUTOSORT™ FLAKE units for advanced flake sort - ing and purification. This combination of units optimiz - es both product quality and processing capacity. Depending on Doğa PET’s customer requirements, the premium PET flakes – produced in various quality grades – are used for PET sheet production, while the rPET granules are mainly aimed at bottle-to-bottle recy- cling and high-quality textile applications. The company plans to export its recycled products, primarily to Euro- pean countries. Achieving exceptional purity levels with TOMRA technology Dr. Selçuk Gökhan Gerlikhan, General Manager of Doğa PET, comments: “PET recycling has gained sig - nificant momentum in recent years. Instead of recycling PET waste into lower-value materials, it is crucial to use advanced technological infrastructure to recover it and produce materials with properties closely resembling those of virgin raw materials. TOMRA has been an in - valuable partner since the start of this project. TOMRA’s solutions are widely recognized as industry benchmarks by our customers, so we plan to invest in additional sort- ers as we develop our lines.” Commenting on the speed at which the plant achieved the targeted purity levels in its initial operations, Dr. Gerlikhan said: "We separate purity levels into two cat - egories: polymer and color. Our target for polymer pu - rity was 99.998% for the final product, and we achieved this. For color, our goal was to reach a purity level of 99% transparent PET in the final product. This includes reducing other colors, such as light blue PET, to below 1%. We have already exceeded expectations by achiev - ing color variations below 0.5%." Minimizing loss of light blue PET material while maximizing purity in clear While producing clear flakes, Doğa PET aims to mini - mize the loss of light blue PET material and, when nec - essary, separates the light blue material from the clear one. The blue bottles, which are ejected when process - ing clear PET, can be a valuable resource for other ap- plications. Doğa PET is the first facility in Türkiye to successfully separate light blue material from clear material, regard- less of the infeed product. During the sorting process, light blue products are separated from all infeed materi- als and recovered for reuse as needed. Serkan Orhan, Sales Manager for TOMRA Recycling Sorting in Türkiye and the Middle East, explains the full process: "The plant’s production line features four AU- TOSORT™ units which pre-sort the PET bottles. The first three sort by material and color before sending them to Doğa PET is using TOMRA’s sorting solutions to produce high-quality PET flakes and rPET granules