Technological watch

Ineos teams up with Italian recycler / Hybrid plastics from PE bottle caps

Ineos teams up with Italian recycler / Hybrid plastics from PE bottle capsForever Plastâ??s production site in Lograto / Italy (Photo: Forever Plast)The â??Olefins & Polymers Europe" division of Ineos (London / UK; www.ineos.com) has entered into a partnership with recyclate manufacturer Forever Plast (Milan / Italy; www.foreverplast.it) in a bid to achieve its own ambitious circular-economy targets.
The companies have together developed a new series of polyethylene materials that correspond to current Ineos virgin materials and are said to be processable on standard injection moulding and injection compression moulding machines without need for major modifications. Blends of post-consumer recyclate from bottle caps and primary materials are used for the grades in this â??Recycl-INâ? range.
Iain Hogan, CEO Ineos Olefins & Polymers, said that the initiative is aimed at producing closures for non-food applications. â??For a while PET bottles have been increasingly recycled but this is one of the first circular developments to tackle the caps. This is a major step forward,â? he said.
Over the next five years, Ineos intends to process 6.5 bn caps for its Recycl-IN materials. Given that a standard water bottle cap weighs around 2 g, the quantity will be around 13,000 t â?? or about 2,500 t/y. Ineosâ?? capacities for virgin HDPE grades, by contrast, are 2.6m t/y, according to Plasteurope.comâ??s Polyglobe database (www.polyglobe.net).
The British company intends to have polyolefins for packaging applications with a recycled content of at least 50% in its range in Europe by 2025. In addition, an average of 30% recyclate is also to be incorporated in polystyrene grades for packaging. Ineos underlines its targets by stating that a quantity of â??at least 325,000 tâ? of recycled material is to be deployed over this period.
The UK group cooperation with Forever Plast is just one of several partnerships. Ineos is also intending to use recyclates from the â??Avonmouth Resource Centerâ? operated by Viridor (Taunton, Somerset / UK; www.viridor.co.uk) â?? see Plasteurope.com vom 11.02.2020.
At its facility in Lograto / Italy near Milan, Forever Plast has an overall capacity of 100,000 t/y for shredding, washing and extruding post-consumer material. The Italian company produces HDPE, polypropylene and polystyrene regrind in its 15,000 m² production plant, together with a range of end products that includes garden composters, lawn grids and flexible sports floors.19.02.2020 Plasteurope.com [244527-0]

Publication date: 19/02/2020

Plasteurope

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Last update: 2022-01-31