A Sustainability Success Story for AMUT & Hickman’s

AMUT continues its strong progress in 2021, with a new ‘green’ achievement. The company plays an important role in preventing post-consumer PET bottles from being sent to landfill by enabling the reuse and recycling of plastic with its lines of sorting and washing equipment and extrusion and thermoforming machinery.

During the height of COVID–19 in March 2021, the recycling technology player, AMUT,  successfully completed the training and start-up of a complete sheet line at Hickman’s Family Farms in Arizona. This custom-engineered plant has been designed for PET Food Packaging with the sustainable ‘Bottle to Packaging’ direct process. The complete line has a capacity of 3,500 lbs/h and is equipped with an MPR to guarantee the FDA L-NO direct food contact grade of material starting from 100% Post-Consumer r-PET Flakes.

Thanks to the foresight and commitment of the Hickman Family, they are now producing the PET sheet to make their famous “Sustainable r-PET Eggs Tray” in-house, thereby closing the loop on recycling and consuming upwards of 30,000,000 pounds of r-PET from post-consumer containers annually.

The line is in operation to the customer’s utmost satisfaction, producing around the clock, 24 hours a day.

This is the second stage of Hickman’s vertical integration plan to meet their sustainable packaging objectives, as this sheet will be utilised in their 2 AMUT ACF high-speed thermoforming machines. A winning combination for the task at hand was completed thanks to efficient teamwork between AMUT and Hickman staff.

Branden Hickman, the grandson of the original founders of the Hickman company, commented on the project:

“We’re very excited about working with AMUT on our new recycling start-up here at Hickman’s. COVID created a lot of setbacks, but because of the support from AMUT and the team we have, the startup was seamless and very successful.”

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