Argentinian recycler Reciclar processes up to 600 million plastic bottles per year

For 28 years, the plant, founded by Marcelino Casella, has collected, sorted, and recycled waste. Only recently has Reciclar added two new Autosort Flake units to its operation to produce crystal, green or light blue PET flakes and HDPE flakes of different sizes and colours.

Using Tomra's PET bottle and PET packaging sorting equipment and technology, the Argentinean company has reached a processing capacity of 600 million plastic bottles and a production of 18,000 tons of plastic pallets per year, becoming the leading company in Argentina in PET waste processing.

Reciclar's main focus is the recovery of post-consumer material. About 95% of its operations are dedicated to the recycling of PET and HDPE recovered from waste originating from different parts of the country. Its advanced sorting and recycling processes allow Reciclar S.A. to produce secondary raw materials with virgin-like qualities. This, in turn, allows the company to satisfy the needs of its most demanding customers both locally and internationally, including those in the United States, China, Europe, and other Latin American countries.

Five years ago, Reciclar levelled up its business by updating its existing line with the next-generation equipment from Tomra to expand its offering. Since then, the plant has additionally sorted caps, safety rings, and labels made of different materials.

Reciclar diverts about 2,500 tonnes of recyclables from landfills or nature every month. The benefits are twofold: on the one hand, fewer materials are lost. On the other hand, more materials are available for further processing and recycling. Reciclar makes profits from three Autosort sorting systems from Tomra. These advanced sorting systems carry out accurate and advanced detection and separation of plastic bottles in the pre-sorting stage. Further down the sorting line, Three Autosort Flake conduct a final purification step and sorts plastic flakes by both colour and material.

In Argentina, Reciclar is the only company capable of producing food-grade recycled pellets, an achievement empowered by Tomra's sophisticated sorting units that allow for the recovery of high-quality recyclables.