Plastic recovered from the ocean is driving food-safe recycled polypropylene
Based on a franchise model, this system is now ready to be rolled out more broadly in a similar way to recycled PET, having achieved EU 2022/1616 compliance.
SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): According to Prevented Ocean Plastic, the future of packaging for convenience food, make-up and other consumable products could be recycled polypropylene. In a world first, the organisation has revealed European standard approval for rPP — food-safe polypropylene.
Despite being the second-most common form of plastic polymer in the world, after PET, with 80 million tonnes produced annually, under 1% of polypropylene is recycled. Most of which is actually ‘downcycled’ to make lower value materials, with uses such as food packaging requiring higher standards and therefore still reliant on virgin materials.
A major obstacle has been the overall supply chain, something Prevented Ocean Plastic believes it has finally overcome. By introducing processes which can effectively sort and customise feedstock with controlled collection points, the task of reusing waste polypropylene as polypropylene, rather than an inferior product, has been made much easier.
Based on a franchise model, this system is now ready to be rolled out more broadly in a similar way to recycled PET, having achieved EU 2022/1616 compliance.
‘Our current material output is around 10,000 tonnes per annum and we’re already 10 times oversubscribed,’ said Raffi Schieir, Director of Prevented Ocean Plastic, explaining that his organisation estimates that by 2030 around 1 million tonnes of rPP could be produced and used. ‘The demand is clearly there. The early adopters will be supported, but the brands that wait too long could find it a lot harder to source.
‘It’s a huge step forward for the industry, and an even bigger step forward for what responsible supply chains can deliver,’ he added. ‘We can now have mechanically recycled polypropylene in final food-safe products, and that’s simply never been done before.’
Courtesy: www.environmentjournal.online