The Gaglianico factory

Hot Washed Flakes, flakes of recycled PET not yet suitable for contact with food, are the raw material of the production process for the creation of a preform. They arrive at the Gaglianico plant in 1-ton bags and are analyzed to confirm their quality with respect to the requirements in our laboratory with all the necessary tools to guarantee process analysis. The Gaglianico plant is capable of processing up to 30,000 tons of HWF per year. The Hot Washed Flakes are then separated from any foreign bodies, sorted and transferred to 5 special silos for storage of 80 cubic meters each.

Recycled PET resin has the appearance of small fragments of cubic / cylindrical shape and its production process starts from Hot Washed Flakes which, stored in silos, have yet to be made suitable for contact with food according to national and European legal requirements. HFWs undergo a crystallization and drying phase . The material is then brought to about 290° and thus passes from the solid state to the liquid state. Through a filtration and vacuum process, this is decontaminated from potential impurities. This is where the pelletization phase starts, where the decontaminated PET is transformed into threads and cut into small pieces.  These solidify in contact with water, finally becoming resin pellets, which are cooled to about 60° and transferred to 3 resin storage silos of 80 cubic meters each.

By preform we mean the PET bottle (virgin or recycled) before the blow molding that gives it its shape. In an initial drying phase, the resin pellets are first brought to 160° and then melted at about 290°. At this point, it is injected under high pressure into a mold where it finally becomes preform. Removed from the mould, the preforms, which weigh from 17g to 44.7g, undergo further control analyses that confirm their quality compliance and are packaged in cardboard packaging (octabin) and then stored in the warehouse of the Gaglianico plant from which they are sent to the Coca-Cola HBC Italia production sites in Nogara (VR). Oricola (AQ) and Marcianise (CE), where they will become bottles of different sizes, from 0.4L to 2L.