The US corporation Ball has started production of fully recyclable aluminium beverage cans at a new plant in Plzeň at a cost of more than CZK 4 billion. It has 150 employees so far, with plans for 200. The building and technology are in trial operation, said Radek Mádr, director of Ball Beverage Packaging ČR. The plant will produce several billion cans a year.
“During the spring we started production on the first production line. A very intensive process of gradual expansion of technology awaits us. Our goal is to start full production in 2024,” Mádr said. He did not comment on the current production, but the main customers are the world’s leading beverage producers, he said. Export is expected to account for a significant share.
The development centre is already operational. According to Mádr, the technology in the new plant is one of the most advanced in the world. “The service and continuous improvement is taken care of by experts from the service and development centre,” he said.
Ball has been producing beverage cans with about the same number of people in Dýšina near Plzeň for 27 years, but had to invest in expansion due to the rapidly growing demand for recyclable packaging worldwide. “We are the largest producer in the world and we were the first in the Czech Republic,” Mádr said at the start of construction last April. Dýšinský Ball is also looking for more employees.
The 100,000-square-metre plant is the first in the emerging 28-hectare Panattoni Pilsen Digital Park industrial zone between the former Skoda Plzeň site and the Borská pole zone. Ball plans to expand production there. Panattoni Pilsen Digital Park is designed to enable users to install and operate sophisticated automated equipment in modern buildings, using the latest technology to minimise environmental impact.
According to company representatives, aluminium cans are the most commonly recycled beverage packaging. In Europe, 76 percent of them are recycled, in Germany up to 99 percent. “Recycled aluminium can be reused virtually indefinitely with minimal loss. It only takes 60 days to process and transform into a new can,” said Ball’s media representative Tomas Sazima. The input material for production, aluminium coils, already contain 80 per cent recycled content, according to the director. “Our goal is to keep increasing this proportion,” he said.
In addition to Dýšina, with a capacity of hundreds of millions of cans a year, Canpack, a company with headquarters in Poland, has been producing such packaging in the region for three years, 40 kilometres away in Stříbro. It has an annual capacity of over a billion units.
With offices in more than 100 countries and a tradition since 1880, Ball supplies aluminium packaging for beverages, cosmetics and hygiene products, as well as technology for aerospace and other industries and services, mainly for the US government. It employs 24,000 people worldwide. In the Czech Republic, it has a plant in Velim.
Source: CTK
Photo: Panattoni
