The evolution of extrusion

Rob Coker visited Coveris UK’s manufacturing site in Winsford, Cheshire, where he spoke with Technical Director Mike Richardson and Sales Director Sujoy Bose.

Back in the late 90s I took a temporary job as a janitor at Britton TACO’s film extrusion site for packaging applications on Winsford Industrial Estate. The factory floor was dark, dusty and littered with thousands of lost little pellets that I was tasked with sweeping up and sieving into a bulk bag ready to be shipped off to I have no memory of where. I believe this was possibly best practice post-industrial recycling at the time, please correct me if I’m wrong.

It was noisy, and the shifts were long and lonely. The only social space I recall was a box room with makeshift wooden benches around the perimeter, where dozens of overall-clad lads sat eating sandwiches and smoking during breaks.

Almost a quarter of a century later I returned to the site, now operated by Coveris UK, in the capacity of a plastics industry journalist. Now a much more illuminated place to work than I remember, the factory floor is cleaner by far, and I saw approximately zero bulk bags containing a compound of pellets reclaimed from the floor and dust and general industrial detritus. There were no janitors. It even seemed quieter, most likely due to improvements in the extrusion machinery and relevant process control technology. A stylish canteen has been established where employees can sit in comfort whilst watching the news. And, of course, there is no smoking. The only familiar thing to me was the warm smell of the great vibrating bubbles as they stretched upward toward the roof.

There I met Technical Director Mike Richardson, who has worked his way up – starting as a trainee operator – since 1985. “Since I started here the site has changed beyond recognition, turning a tired old Metal Box canning site into the largest extrusion-only site in the UK.

“Our net waste is now less than two per cent, and this is offset to almost zero by using post-consumer recycled raw materials, predominantly from the supermarket waste stream. Our products range from high-spec technical barrier films to the lowest carbon footprint tertiary wrap film available.

“Coveris Winsford houses the only nine-layer barrier line in the UK. Supported by 39 silos, the site is the biggest of its kind in the country, and one of the largest in Europe. Operations have changed considerably since I started.”

In 2022, the Winsford site is expected to produce over 47,000 tonnes of extruded blown film plastics, equating to around 130 tonnes per day. In January 2022, the site produced 420 tonnes of process waste, yet even 400 tonnes of this was recycled and re-introduced into various products via the on-site recycling centre. Here, Sales Director Sujoy Bose, confirmed how Coveris’ sustainability vision of ‘NO WASTE’ and the UK Plastics Packaging Tax, which states that all packaging products should include at least 30 per cent recycled material, had “already done its job”.

“Our mass-balance approach,” Bose said, “brings raw materials in to create valuable products. For example, 100 tonnes of raw material creates 100 tonnes of product. We currently have a 98 per cent mass-balance efficiency rate. Our products are present in a broad range of applications in the packaging, medical and construction industries, with the damp-proof membrane helping to increase efficiency by giving a function – a second life – to waste that is difficult to manage.”

In the packaging sector, Coveris is focusing on recyclability, food science and shelf-life extension. Many of these products have gone from being unrecyclable mixed laminates through conversion into monomaterial, singular laminate structures, and the company remains committed to further innovations through its on-site Film Science Lab in Winsford, where the UK Packaging Award-winning Duralite R range of shrink film was developed. The ‘R’ represents recycled content and comes in a range of 30 per cent, 50 per cent, and an R-MAX variety.

Bose added: “In 2020, we set out on a journey to expand our sustainable films operation and to position ourselves as a world leader in innovation for our stretch, agri, industrial and recycled product markets. To do this we needed to invest in next-generation co-extrusion capacity and capability. In less than a year we built a brand-new 825 square metre stretch film manufacturing hall to house four state-of-the-art lines.”

The capacity increase Bose mentioned has already improved by 20 per cent in what was already the UK’s largest blown film extrusion facility. But a greater number of extrusion lines must logically produce a larger amount of waste, I asked.

“Coveris operates a ‘NO WASTE’ vision,” Richardson added, “in which all employees – from the machine operatives to the executive team – can get involved and take equal responsibility for the initiatives. In 2021, Coveris introduced a No Waste Champion Award, an internal competition for all employees to contribute ideas on how we can reduce waste, use our resources better and become more sustainable. Nadia Mazzei, Inventory Manager at Coveris Winsford and a founding Green Team member, was our first ever NO WASTE Champion with her idea to cut pallet labelling of finished goods in half, which equates to a 1.8 tonne reduction of CO2 per year at the site.

“Furthermore, the Green Team initiative aims to reduce Kw/h per tonne, fossil fuel dependency, and waste using a mass-balance approach. We take responsibility for own waste right here by investing in the right machinery from the right industry partners, and empowering our employees to get involved in the operation.”

This was when Richardson led me through to the in-house recycling facility, where I could see the strategic partnerships in action through machinery supplied by Europe-based giants EREMA and NGR, as well as materials handling solutions from Summit Systems. I’m no expert in polymer science, but I could see that the colour and the quality of the pellets showering into the bulk bag was as near to virgin as I could imagine.

“This bag stock of recycled pellets, when full, will be tested and returned to the shop floor and fed straight into one of our blown-film extruders,” Richardson concluded.

It almost seemed like a concession that the infrastructure to perform such an operation in society is not yet there, but the old saying reminds us, constantly, that if you want something done – do it yourself. In the extrusion manufacturing sector, and certainly at Coveris, as I have witnessed, recycling, circularity and sustainability are now interwoven into the fabric of each business in ways that were just not possible 25 years ago.