RecyOuest, a French green economy company, has successfully started up world’s first recycling line that produces recycling fibres for nonwoven applications from agricultural plastic waste nets. The unique dry-cleaning system of the recycling line was delivered, installed, and commissioned by Austria-based international technology group Andritz in August 2022.

The Andritz recycling line can process up to 8,000 tons of waste and produce recycling fibres for nonwoven applications and also for pellets made of waste from agricultural single-use plastic nets and twines. These pellets are then returned to the plastics industry by mixing both recycled and virgin raw materials, thus reducing the amount of virgin plastic used, Andritz said in a press release.

This line, inspired by the techniques from textile wastes recycling, is equipped with a unique mechanical dry-cleaning system that allows resource savings by avoiding the use of water and chemicals. This Andritz equipment allows RecyOuest to also produce pellets for ever new eco-designed nets and twines for the agricultural sector, with the lowest possible environmental impact.

Marcela Moisson, founder and president, RecyOuest, said: “We are very grateful for the excellent cooperation with the R and D team from Andritz, who fully supported us in their technical centre. Thanks to Andritz Laroche’s expertise in textile industry, we succeeded in finding the exact process required for recycling agricultural waste, which was a huge challenge.

This unique dry-cleaning process allows us to minimise our environmental impact drastically in the long run, while giving a second life to agricultural waste for which, until now, there was no recycling solution, neither in France, the leading country in the agricultural sector, nor worldwide.”