AD Compound, leader Italian company in the production and processing of compounds for industry, talks about itself and reveals the strength of its know-how, enabling it to make plastic materials’ wastes noble and sustainable.
Highly performing, recycled and recyclable compounds in PP and PE, with the whole safety of modern technologies and certified traceability. A recipe that has conquered the Italian and international market, the one by AD Compound S.p.a., Made in Italy brand with national and international ambitions, which has mainly specialized in the processing of industrial polypropylene waste materials, PRE and post- consumption. They are reproposed on the market with a technical and aesthetical level never reached before, especially for small and major appliances in the household appliance field.
The company, which ended 2021 with a production of 40,000 tons, stands out among the first 10 most sustainable Italian compound manufacturers, becoming renowned also abroad, always in compliance with the know-how developed in Italy along these years, and with the traceability guarantee of its processes, two rules on which it does not compromise.
Here is the highlight of AD Compound, which produces also a bio-based line, together with precise rules and much determination. We talk about that with Silvana Marconi, Commercial department-marketing, and Fabio Spinozzi, Purchase and sale manager.
What are the highlights in favour of your compound production that have made you the benchmark company in Italy?
Our core business is the production of compounds based on recycled polypropylene, from both industrial waste and industrial post-consumption waste. Another plus is that the production does not focus on a single market but along the years it has linked its products with various sectors, offering tailored high performances from both the technical and aesthetical point of view.
Another competence of which we are proud, deserving the selection at the Supplier Award 2021 of Electrolux, is our being pioneer, in the household appliance field, in presenting a range of recycled coloured and white products with excellent aesthetical performances. At this level, we rank among the first.
A result achieved through the Research and Development department of your laboratory?
We can say the success origin goes far beyond, because ennobling a product is an achievement we reach both in laboratory and in production and it derives from a connection of steps that constitute the core of our know-how. We start from the material selection, then we proceed to the in-house engineering phase connected with machines. Therefore, a research and development that, from the start to the end, involves a bit each department, from the commercial to the manufacturing and laboratory one.
Let us tell processing steps.
Our know-how already applies at managerial and commercial level, with the selection of a series of potential suppliers. We perform research and development activities on them, choosing them among the manufacturing realities that intend to enter our circular economy. From this selection starts the provisioning phase, for which AD Compound is strongly structured. As they are operations of waste handling, they must be carried out with attentive compliance with environmental and safety procedure codes. We rely on an in-house dedicated division with highly specialized staff. Once in the factory, materials are analysed, approved and chosen to follow various directions that make up that base mixture on which are intertwined other procedures, fruit of mechanical and laboratory research and development. These three elements together allow proposing compounds formulated differently to satisfy determinate results for different customers.
In what does the compound consist?
We make the raw material, the granule, that is to say the preparation of that base that, matching our mechanical know-how and lab research and development, allows creating a new regenerated material that will give industries the opportunity of implementing their products. The base is in-house processed, to achieve a perfect finished product at both mechanical and aesthetical level and it constitutes the raw material for our customers. Our supply offers mechanical characteristics depending on the final requirement and does not privilege any manufacturing branch, on the contrary it meets several indeed, considering that the compound can be used with injection moulding technologies and in extrusion, grouping all industrial sectors.
What are the certifications reached in these years?
In order to protect our know-how, we have registered it on a world scale. In this way, both employees in-house and all involved partners carry out a suitable determinate practice and a business policy for protecting the value of the whole expertise developed along the years. AD Compound not only recovers, collects, reprocesses and develops but traces the whole course. This requisite has allowed the company to achieve a traceability certification from UL American laboratory. We are the first example in the world and we constitute a unique case. Working with wastes, traceability is a fundamental aspect in both environmental and quality terms. The chain certification allows following our whole path and represents a guarantee of a really sustainable product, for both us and for our customers, otherwise unfeasible. Forbes magazine has acknowledged us as one of the 100 Italian sustainability excellences.
Astride process and products, how do you tell us your company’s green aspect?
Looking at Agenda 2030, we have already reached two important process goals that can be further improved. Even before the race for the sustainable development, we had decided joining a consortium that gives us 100% renewable energy. We are planning to add cogeneration plants. Concerning the use of green waters, we make use of a zero-waste closed circuit that recovers the whole process water by means of our in house depurator. The minimum part collected by the water network will be eliminated by a new plant that will generate even less sludge to be disposed.
We believe in our know-how and we have product certifications connected with our formulas. The most important one has been obtained on the recycled percentage inside our compound families and it guarantees that AD products come from recovered material and are sustainable. However, traceability always represents the most important guarantee.
Moreover, we have a bio-based, performing and highly aesthetical compound. It comes from recycled sources and it is recyclable, like all AD products, but it features the 35% percentage of woody material that makes it more environment-friendly. Although it is manufactured with recycled materials, it has an excellent yield strength, which is a technical feature of polymers, generally obtained mainly with non- eco-friendly charges.
Future strategies and investments in Galliate pole?
AD is in expansion phase, some works are in progress and in 2030 they will lead to an additional 35% manufacturing capacity, new employments and factory enlargement. The company’s control and management have been mastered for 50 years by Mercandalli family, who has always invested their resources in Italy and strongly believes in the Made in Italy value of their activity. The force of going on growing is a strategy aimed at flourishing, here.
