Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited (IVL), with its facility Wellman France Recycling in Verdun, has been working on recycling PET trays for six years through an ongoing project with Valorplast and supported by Citeo, IVL recently announced.
Through the joint project, the partners hope to develop and validate recycling for monolayer and multilayer PET trays. Valorplast has collected significant quantities of post-consumer PET trays and several industrial runs have been conducted by Wellman, IVL reports. The produced flakes are being tested by several actors to develop high-quality applications.
Those tests led IVL, in collaboration with Klöckner Pentaplast (kp), to develop a commercially feasible recycling solution for monolayer PET trays. The innovative technology allows processing of monolayer PET trays used for food packaging (meat, produce and cheese), creating a “high-quality product that is suitable for new tray production,” according to the company.
IVL estimates that the new recycling initiative will see over 50 million post-consumer PET trays diverted away from landfills or incineration.
“This is a true value circle effort. Tests were performed at all levels, including sorting, recycling and conversion. Ensuring the input met the right quality and purity levels is our top priority. Development of tray recycling has been a goal for some time. We are proud that – together with our partners – we have been able to develop a commercially and technically feasible process, that allows us to produce a dedicated rPET flake product for the food packaging market.”
Testing has now moved into commercial production. Five-hundred tonnes of PET trays are now being processed monthly and transformed into a high-quality tray flake, which can be used to produce new trays, reports IVL. “The purity of the flakes is comparable with high-quality bottle flake. A further scale up is foreseen, and the company plans to process 10KT of tray flake in 2022.”
Catherine Klein, General Director of Valorplast said, “We are delighted with the results of this ambitious project. It shows that the recycling of plastic packaging is really progressing. On the side of Valorplast, we have been involved for many years on PET trays recycling. This main project, hand in hand with Indorama Ventures’ Wellman site and started in 2018, leads today to an opportunity for industrial recycling for this type of packaging. Through the project, we are also working on solutions for multilayer PET trays. The next steps could be the game changer we look for.”
Adam Barnett, President of the Food Packaging Division at Klöckner Pentaplast said, “We welcome this investment in Europe’s circular economy. By delivering a circular system for trays, we ensure that valuable secondary raw material is not wasted. We will be using this flake as part of our kp Tray2Tray initiative to include recycled content in our food packaging trays for the fresh food sector across Europe. An exciting step change to creating and supporting true circularity.”
About Indorama Ventures
Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited, listed in Thailand (Bloomberg ticker IVL.TB), is a global business firmly committed to developing technologies and processes that use post-consumer PET and polyester waste materials as feedstock for the future. The company is listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI). Indorama Ventures’ subsidiary, Wellman International, manufactures high-quality rPET resin from recycled post-consumer PET bottles. The company is one of Europe's largest PET bottle recyclers with plants in France, the Netherlands, Ireland and Poland.
While the vast majority of PET is in the form of bottles, 20% of PET products on the market are trays according to “PET Market in Europe – State of Play,” 2022, Eunomia.
Indorama Ventures operates recycling facilities in Mexico, the United States, Brazil, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic, Thailand and the Philippines.
The number of bottles IVL has recycled since 2011 may be tracked at www.indoramaventures.com.
About Valorplast
Valorplast acts to build a sustainable, profitable, and transparent household plastic packaging recycling sector.
The company states, in order to achieve those goals, it has the following missions:
- to organize the take-back guarantee of the flows of plastics packaging collected and sorted by local authorities,
- sustainably develop recycling by identifying high added value outlets for all plastic packaging,
- promote the eco-design of plastic packaging in order to ensure their recyclability.
In 2021, Valorplast managed the recycling of 168,000 tons of household plastic packaging. As an accelerator of the circular economy, Valorplast succeeded, last year, in recycling 70% of its packaging in France and 30% in nearby Europe. In the same vein, Valorplast is fully committed to the deployment of the extension of sorting instructions to French local authorities. In 2021, the proportion of household plastic packaging resulting from this new system (PET trays included) represented 77% of the tonnages taken back and recycled by Valorplast.
About Klöckner Pentaplast
Focused on delivering its vision, “The Sustainable Protection of Everyday Needs,” kp is a global leader in rigid and flexible packaging, and specialty film solutions, serving the pharmaceutical, medical device, protein markets, amongst others. With a broad and innovative portfolio of packaging and product films and services, kp plays an integral role in the customer value chain by safeguarding product integrity, protecting brand reputation and improving sustainability. The company’s “Investing in Better” sustainability strategy solidifies its commitment to achieving ten clear targets for long-term improvement by increasing recycling and recyclability of products, cutting carbon emissions and continuous improvement in employee engagement, safety, and diversity, equity and inclusion. It has earned a gold rating from EcoVadis, the leading platform for environmental, social, and ethical performance ratings, putting kp in the top 3% of companies rated in the manufacturing of plastics products sector. Founded in 1965, kp has 31 plants in 18 countries and employs over 5,900 people committed to serving customers worldwide in over 60 locations. For more information, visit www.kpfilms.com.
About Citeo
Citeo was created in 1992 by consumer goods and distribution companies in order to reduce environmental impact of household packaging and graphic paper, and developed eco-design, collection, sorting and recycling services. To respond to ecological emergencies and accelerate required changes, Citeo pursues 5 social and environmental objectives : reduce the environmental impact of Citeo's customers' products, by embedding a circular economy and eco-design in their practices and strategies, creating conditions to build solutions for today and tomorrow that combine environmental and economic performance, provide consumers with the means to reduce the impact their consumption has on the environment, co-build and promote Citeo's solutions and positions, from local to international levels, cultivate the commitment of Citeo's teams as part of its purpose.
Since the creation of Citeo, the consumer goods and distribution companies have invested about 11 billions euros to develop eco-design, to install and finance selective collection and to create recycling channels with the public and local authorities, and industrial operators.
Today, 68% of household packaging and 60.5% of graphic paper are recycled thanks to the act of sorting by the French people, which has become the first eco-citizen act.
