Tetra Pak received the Association of Post Consumer Plastics Recyclers’ Partners for Change Award. The award is given to a business demonstrating strong environmental responsibility in packaging.
The "Champions for Change" cooperative testing program is a partnership of resin suppliers, plastics recyclers, consumer packaged goods companies, and packaging suppliers, like Tetra Pak.
The APR represents more than 90 percent of the post-consumer plastics recyclers in North America. The focus of the program is to determine a package's compatibility in current recycling processes and provide that information to the supplier and to recyclers both prior to, and after the introduction of new packaging to the marketplace.
The award was presented to Tetra Pak last week at the APR’s annual board meeting.
Working closely with the APR, Tetra Pak put Glaskin -- a new silicon dioxide barrier for PET bottles -- through multiple rounds of testing with several plastics recyclers. Plastics Technologies, Inc. conducted a bottle-to-bottle recycling study on Glaskin. "Even at 100 percent recycled content, the bottles made from the recycled Glaskin looked and performed in a virtually identical manner to the uncoated control bottles," said Frank Schloss, vice president, PTI.