Tetra Pak and Felli, an Italian manufacturer of wood composite materials (WPC) for decking, wall cladding and sunshades, have developed a new solution for exteriors, which by virtue of its distinctive composition combines aesthetic and sensory qualities with high technical performance.
Felli specialises in the production of composite materials for the outdoor world, which predominantly incorporate natural fibres, in particular wood flour, alongside a proportion of plastic polymers.
More specifically, the compounds that the company develops are used both externally in injection moulding and internally for profile extrusion. The latter includes the choice made by Felli to integrate a percentage of PolyAl in the production of the profiles, i.e. the plastic and aluminium component deriving from recycled beverage cartons, which, suitably regenerated through a specific reworking process at the Ecoplasteam company, is converted into a recycled granule particularly interesting for this application.
A concrete example of a circular economy that shows how even PolyAl, which makes up about 30% of Tetra Pak cartons in their traditional structure (while the remaining 70% is cellulose), can be transformed into a valuable resource and become a second raw material of great value through suitable recycling processes.
We have always worked with an eco-sustainable approach because since our origins the flour we use comes from primary wood processing waste and from today, thanks to the collaboration with Tetra Pak, also part of the plastic polymers comes from mechanical recycling, thus guaranteeing the lowest possible environmental impact. Therefore, while the proportion of wood used contributes to creating a solution with a natural touch and great aesthetics, the proportion introduced of PolyAl, thanks to a long study on the formulation of our profiles, has allowed us to further increase their performance and versatility,
ha commentato Tiziano Roveda, Managing Director, Felli.
Tetra Pak has been working for a long time to achieve this goal and we are proud to have found along this path an industrial partner like Felli, with whom we share the will to protect the Planet through tangible and continuous actions, aimed at promoting a virtuous and sustainable system. This collaboration once again testifies to the possibility of giving new life to beverage cartons, transforming them after recycling into high quality products capable of satisfying multiple needs, ensuring excellent performance and with an eye to aesthetic value. We believe, in fact, that the creation of partnerships with leading players like Felli will be increasingly central to promoting the reuse of materials like PolyAl and ensuring that it is used in a growing number of applications,
said Lorenzo Nannariello, Sustainability Manager South Europe, Tetra Pak.
