EREMA developing new site to boost circular economy

Just under a year ago, the EREMA Group started to repurpose the premises of Gruber & Kaja in Sankt Marien, Austria, which was taken over as a reserve site in January 2021.

Around €20m was invested in the purchase of the 40,000 square metre plot, as the site offered the opportunity to increase production capacity by 60 per cent in the immediate vicinity of the company headquarters in Ansfelden.

At the end of 2020, the company was still completing the expansion to its Ansfelden headquarters, which involved an investment of around €17m. 20 new jobs have now been created at Sankt Marien, with a further 30 to follow. By the time the new site is completed, the total number of new jobs will be up to 150.

This development is due to the high demand for the EREMA Group's plastics recycling technologies and the trend towards ever-larger recycling plants.

CEO Manfred Hackl said: "Just in December, we delivered a VACUREMA system to Brazil that will produce up to 40,000 metric tonnes of recycled PET (rPET) per year. That is equivalent to recycling around 1.1 billion 1.5-litre PET bottles. This site provides the perfect conditions for building this scale of machine.".

Markus Achleitner, Upper Austria's Minister for the Economy, added: "There is hardly any other region in the world that focuses as closely on materials expertise and the circular economy as in Upper Austria. We want to fully exploit this potential with our #upperVISION2030 business and research strategy. EREMA is an important driver in this industry. It makes me all the more pleased that the company owners have once again confirmed their commitment to Upper Austria as a business location, to the circular economy and to the employees by developing this site.”