Autex trial turns PET waste into construction feedstock

Autex has completed a trial of reactive extrusion technology for acoustic panels with Australian recycling company Lextra, in what it describes as the first use of the process in this product area.

The trial involved sending 600 kilograms of excess PET from Autex's pelletising process to Sydney, where Lextra used its LexRex system to convert the material into polyols. Those polyols can then be used to make new materials for the construction sector, offering a route for waste that would otherwise be difficult to recycle.

The work marks a further step in Autex's effort to build a fully circular manufacturing system for its products. It also extends the work of Autex Future Lab, the company's research and development unit focused on materials and manufacturing methods.

Autex's acoustic panels are made from PET and already go through an internal recycling loop at the end of their lives. Panels are broken down through a pelletising system, and the recovered material is turned into accessories including Spinfix clips, Vicinity desk clamps and Frontier end caps.

That process, however, has technical limits. After repeated recycling cycles, sometimes as many as 10, polymer chains shorten and the PET becomes too brittle and degraded to be processed further through conventional methods.

Reactive extrusion is intended to address that stage in the material's life. Instead of treating degraded PET as waste, the process converts it into a chemical feedstock that can be used in new products, keeping the material in circulation for longer.

Recycling limit

At present, no reactive extrusion machines are operating in New Zealand, so the trial had to be carried out in Australia. Autex is now assessing the results to determine whether similar systems could be replicated domestically.

It wants to use the project as a model that could be adopted more widely across manufacturing and construction. That would require investment in equipment, as well as support from companies and public bodies involved in waste, design and building materials.

Jonathan Mountfort, Creative Director at Autex, said the company had spent years refining recycling methods for its products and saw the new process as a way to deal with material that had reached the end of its conventional recycling life.

"We've spent years innovating technical and, more recently, natural recycling processes to ensure our products avoid unnecessary waste, and are working towards being regenerative. Traditional recycling methods are fixed by the input. Reactive Extrusion creates a vast web of opportunities for the output. It gives us the ultimate path towards 100% zero waste and embodies the fearlessness that has always been core to Autex's philosophy," Mountfort said.

Lextra specialises in circular economy processes and worked with Autex on the trial in Sydney. Its technology is designed to refine waste PET into polyols, which are used in the production of materials including those used in building applications.

Simon Mathewson, Executive Director at Lextra, said the partnership reflected growing interest among companies in moving beyond established recycling approaches.

"Collaborating with Autex on this trial has been a pleasure and we're excited to see Kiwi companies looking beyond the status quo. Our company was founded on the vision of a zero waste future, and our LexRex technology proves that we can achieve this both here and across the Tasman," Mathewson said.

Local blueprint

For Autex, the next stage is less about a single product line than whether a wider industrial system can be built around similar processes in New Zealand. It is considering how the technology could be introduced locally and then scaled for use by other sectors that also generate hard-to-recycle plastic waste.

Mountfort said that would depend on collaboration beyond the company itself.

"This isn't something we can do alone. Our goal at Autex is to create systems that give more than they take, but this requires collaboration with government and other companies in the manufacturing, design, and building industries to ensure we have the technology needed to realise this," he said.

He added that the company wants the trial to serve as a practical example for the wider market.

"We're hoping to demonstrate how this project could help us close the loop on plastic waste, reduce reliance on fossil fuels, and transform the future of manufacturing so we can use it as a proof of concept to get others on board. Because while a material cannot be sustainable on its own, these transformative technologies have the potential to make our planet a safer, healthier place for future generations to thrive. But to unlock their full impact, we need others to step up, lean in, and help shape a more sustainable future together," Mountfort said.

The trial builds on the creation of Autex Future Lab, which was established as a base for research into new materials, products and manufacturing methods linked to resource use and waste reduction.

For now, one of the clearest outcomes is that Autex has tested a route for PET waste that conventional recycling can no longer handle, using 600 kilograms of excess material that might otherwise have been discarded.