Industrial sourcing · China to Europe

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Buyer guide · Recycling

Recycling granulator from China

Recycling granulator names two different machines in Chinese listings, a knife mill that cuts plastic into flakes and an extruder line that melts it into pellets, and a buyer can end up comparing offers that are not the same machine.

Ask about this machine ↗Where the numbers come from

Written and listings checked 1 October 2026. Every figure on this page names its source.

What you are actually comparing.

Two quotes, one machine name

What hides inside the price

Knife mill or pelletizer

A knife granulator has a rotor with knives, a bed knife and a screen, and makes regrind. A pelletizing granulator melts and cuts pellets. Ask for a photo of the rotor or the screw.

Rotor type

Open rotors suit soft or thick parts; closed rotors suit thin, hard material. Ask the rotor type, its diameter and the number of rotating and fixed knives.

Screen size and change

The screen hole size sets the flake size. Ask for the sizes supplied and how long a screen change takes.

Knife steel and adjustment

Ask the knife steel, hardness, and whether knives are set outside the machine in a jig or adjusted inside. Knives set in a jig go back in faster and cut more evenly, which keeps flake size steady between changes.

Noise enclosure and dust

Granulators are loud and make fines. Ask whether a sound enclosure and a fines separator are included.

Before you ask for a price.

Send these with the enquiry. Without them, any number a factory gives you is a guess dressed as a quotation.

Your material: sprues, rejected parts, pipe, film, bottles, with photos and the thickest wall.
Largest piece that must go in whole.
The flake size your next process needs.
Kilograms per hour needed, and whether the granulator sits beside a moulding machine or in a recycling hall.
Supply voltage and whether a conveyor or blower is needed after it.

Turn the claim into a demonstration.

Require this	A pass looks like
Granulate a weighed batch of your thickest and your thinnest parts.	Output weighed per hour at or above the offer, and flake size inside your specification.
Sieve a sample of the regrind.	Fines below the share your process accepts, measured by weight.
Change the screen and reset one knife.	Both done in the times stated in the manual, with guards interlocked while open.

The documents that must arrive with it.

EU Declaration of Conformity with the serial number, under 2006/42/EC until 19 January 2027, then Regulation (EU) 2023/1230.
Knife and screen drawings with steel grade and hardness.
Electrical drawings with low voltage 2014/35/EU and EMC 2014/30/EU references.

The one people forget. The noise declaration from the manual. Granulators are often placed beside workers, and your noise assessment needs the tested level.

When this is the wrong machine.

Buy something else if

Named, not hedged

Your pieces are bulky: pallets, drums, lumps or bales.

An industrial recycling shredder in front. A granulator feed opening and rotor are not built for them.

You need pellets, not flakes.

A plastic recycling line with an extruder, which is what many listings called granulator mean.

Where the numbers come from.

We name the kind of source, how many and when, and never the factory. Listed prices are asking prices, not landed cost. Where we do not hold a fact we say so: that is a GAP, not an estimate.

Listings · 11Eleven plastic granulator listings in one marketplace search, checked October 2026: ten showed asking prices from US$500 to US$160,000. Asking prices, not landed cost.
Listings · 11By title, nine of the same eleven listings were pelletizing extruder lines and two were knife granulators, the two knife machines listed from US$500 to US$10,000.
GAPGAP - no supplier quotations logged for this machine yet. Three to five quotations for one configuration would give a real price spread.

Related machines.

Industrial recycling shredder. Put a shredder in front when your pieces are too bulky for a granulator feed.
Plastic recycling line. Choose a recycling line when you want pellets rather than flakes.

Every machine we source in this area is on the Recycling page. How a project runs, stage by stage, is on how it works, and what it costs is on pricing.

Straight answers

Questions buyers ask about this machine.

Chinese vs European recycling granulator: what is the difference?+

Rotor build, knife steel, noise enclosure and screen change design. Granulate the same sample on both, then compare flake size, fines by weight and the time each knife change takes.

What does a granulator factory audit look at?+

Rotor balancing, knife grinding in house, cutting chamber welding, guard interlocks and a running machine on real scrap.

What CE documentation should a granulator have?+

A Declaration of Conformity with the serial number, and a manual in your language describing safe knife changes. The CE mark alone proves nothing.

Who is the EU importer of a granulator bought direct?+

Your company. It checks the documentation and puts its name on the machine or its papers.

Contact

Tell us what you need.

Send a machine, a quotation you want checked, or a question. We reply with what we would look at first.