A Haitian Mars 2100-ton clamp force injection moulding machine is being used at the plant at Blackheath, Cape Town. Here the Hilectro pickand-place robot (also manufactured by Haitian in China) transports a pallet to a conveyor an adjacent jig where cooling is controlled to eliminate warpage
processing problems, including those presented by material drying, material flow, chilling of the mould and others. By end-January the team was on the verge of full production. With market acceptance, the rPET pallet could see huge demand. Annual demand for pallets – for produce manufacturers and the entire logistics chain – in South Africa is estimated to be between 30 and 40 million units a year, although getting accurate stats proves difficult. At present wood still forms the bulk of pallet supply. The Cape has already seen a major plastic pallet project go under, but lessons were learned from the Lomold long fibre-low pressure concept. In that case, proprietary equipment was utilised, and several experienced local injection moulding specialists had warned of the danger of trying to develop new technology. After several design variations and much hype, the Lomold business imploded in 2013. By contrast, the Palletplast project is using standard technology and has steadily eliminated problems encountered along the way, mainly stemming from the use of recycled material. The Palletplast team appear
to have not let expectation get too far ahead of the team, but solving the technical challenges has kept the pressure up throughout. With wood prices going up, and availability of wood reduced, the longserving wood pallet is not what it was, so again there appears to be an opportunity for material substitution here. Besides that, the origin of the rPET pallet was that of developing a ‘non-slip’ pallet, and the Palletplast product offers a vital additional advantage here too. With the introduction, the Palletplast sales team is working with distributors around the country; they have an estimated 40 product trials underway, even up to Limpopo, and initial feedback has been positive. The rPET pallet has been approved by UK supermarket group Tesco.
www.palletplast.co.za
Annabé Pretorius of Plastix 911/ SAPRO visited Chris Smith recently to assess the ‘new kid on the block’ pallet
FEBRUARY / MARCH 2019 7
Several challenges emerged with the drying of the material, which were ultimately solved by the introduction of an infrared drying chamber from Kreyenborg of Germany
PHOTOS BY: MARTIN WELLS
Machine setter Eric Adams with three of the partners in the Palletplast venture, Steph le Roux, Andrew Morkel and Chris Smith
