United Kingdom-based environmental services firm Viridor has announced a partnership arrangement with three U.K.-based retailers – Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Sainsbury’s – and food packaging manufacturer Faerch Plast to put recycled black plastic into new food-contact-grade packaging. The project, expected to begin in July 2018, will ideally result in 120 metric tons of black plastic scrap being consumed by Faerch Plast.
According to Viridor, the volume of material collected for recycling is expected to increase over the next 18 months. The material will be shipped to Viridor’s plastics recycling facility in Rochester, U.K.
U.K. Environment Secretary Michael Gove says, “This global leading scheme has the potential to mean the U.K. exports less of its [scrap], could divert huge amounts of plastic away from landfill and prevent virgin plastic from entering the market in the first place.”
Paul Ringham, Viridor commercial director, says the collaboration is evidence of the goals of the U.K. Plastics Pact – of which the company was a founding signatory – being put into action to enact changes for which the public has been calling.
“The project team, working together since January, has proven that black plastic from household mixed recycling can be recycled into high-quality mixed colored ‘jazz’ flakes to create food grade packaging,” says Ringham.
“The breakthrough took place at two Viridor facilities: the plastics recycling facility at Rochester, which is one of the most advanced optical sorting facilities in the U.K., and the company’s polymers reprocessing plant at Skelmersdale in Lancashire (England), which takes recycled plastic and creates flakes and pellets to be used in the manufacturing process," he adds.
Beginning in July, Viridor will begin putting black plastics through the new process, adding black plastic to the colored plastic stream already recycled, and it will be used in new packaging for M&S, Sainsbury’s and Tesco products.
Ringham says the key to the success of the project will be the collaboration across the supply chain, with the retailers creating the sustained demand for the recycled material and what he calls innovative packaging provided by Faerch Plast.
“The more plastic collected, the more is made available to be recycled and put back into the circular economy. In this way, we all contribute to reducing the amount of virgin plastic entering the economy,” Ringham concludes.
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