SABIC part of recycled-content plastic packaging effort

Global petrochemical firm SABIC says it has leveraged its ties with Polivouga, a maker of flexible film products with operations in Portugal, to help develop what it calls “the world’s first frozen food packaging solution using SABIC’s certified circular polyethylene from feedstock sourced from ocean-bound plastic.”

SABIC says the project has been designed to use post-consumer plastic scrap “recovered from areas up to 50 kilometers (31 miles) inland from waterways,” thus fitting an outside certification body’s definition of “ocean-bound.”

The project’s third collaborator is the Spain-based Nueva Pescanova Group, which operates in the fishing, farming, processing and marketing of fresh, chilled and frozen seafood products sector.

The collected plastic scrap is converted using what SABIC calls “an advanced recycling” process to produce the company’s certified circular polymers – SABIC® LLDPE (linear low-density polyethylene) and LDPE (low-density polyethylene). Further processing by Polivouga yields flexible packaging film used by Nueva Pescanova in its frozen seafood packaging bags.

“This is an exciting circular packaging solution for us, since it demonstrates how used plastic that has the potential to end up in our oceans, can be brought back into a circular material stream to be converted into high quality food packaging,” says Sami Al-Osaimi, a vice president with SABIC.

Comments Ignacio González, CEO of the Nueva Pescanova Group, “With this initiative, we will prevent this plastic waste from reaching the marine environment, giving them a new life. We have set ourselves the goal of making 100 percent of our packaging recyclable by 2025 and, through this action, we will be one step closer to achieving this.”

The ocean-bound designation is certified under the Zero Plastic Oceans program and the International Sustainability & Carbon Certification (ISCC) PLUS chain of custody, says SABIC. That means the material flow is controlled and tracked from the ocean-bound plastic to the final packaging “following a set of predefined and transparent rules,” according to the company.

“The project reaffirms the determined journey we have embarked on with SABIC to drive circularity in our industry and takes it one step further, enabling us to provide our customers with premium flexible film products now also based on mixed plastic waste that could otherwise pollute our seas and waterways,” remarks Tiago Barros, CEO at Polivouga. “Besides delivering a food-contact approved polyolefin product, this ocean-bound plastic polyethylene (PE) films ensure the same tear and puncture resistance as competing PE packaging structures made from virgin fossil PE resins.”

SABIC says its circular or recycled-content polymers form part of the company’s Trucircle portfolio and services. The brand also includes design-for-recyclability services, mechanically recycled products, certified renewable polymers from bio-based feedstock and “closed loop initiatives to recycle plastic back into high-quality applications and help prevent valuable used plastics from becoming waste,” says the corporation.