MOSCOW (MRC) -- Berry Global is relying on several ways to make plastic packaging easier to recycle, said the company.
Consumer brand owners now rank recyclability as a criterion for their packaging, a shift from previous years, said Rob Flores, vice president of sustainability, Berry Global. Berry itself has committed to having all of its fast-moving consumer packaging meet this goal by 2025.
One way the company is doing this is by making packing with a single type of material. Berry has been replacing polystyrene (PS) with polypropylene (PP) in part because the latter is easier to recycle.
addition, Berry has developed a container called the Magic Star Airless Dispenser that replaced the metal spring used in the nozzles of dispenser bottles with one made with PP.
In addition, companies are looking for ways to replace the rubber gaskets used on the lids of plastic buckets. Another way to make plastics easier to recycle is through colour modification. Recycling companies often rely on near-infrared (NIR) spectrometres to sort waste plastic by type. Segregating waste plastic by type makes it easier to recycle.
NIR spectrometres run into problems when they are scanning black pigments. Plastic companies are overcoming this challenge by developing pigments that appear black to the human eye but which are still detectable by NIR spectrometres.
As it was reported before, Berry Global Group, Inc. (Evansville, Indiana) says it will break ground in September on a new polypropylene (PP) recycling facility in Leamington, United Kingdom, that it says will produce food-grade materials with a target purity standard of 99.9%. The new facility will be housed in a purpose-built, net-zero carbon, centrally located 13,000-square-meter, or 139,931-square-foot facility, offsetting CO2 emissions with local tree planting.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,638,370 tonnes in the first eight months of 2021, up by 10% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 989,570 tonnes in the first eight months of 2021, up by 30% year on year. Deliveries of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas shipments of injection moulding PP random copolymers decreased significantly.
Berry Global Group, Inc. create innovative packaging and engineered products. Harnessing the strength in its diversity and industry leading talent of 47,000 global employees across more than 295 locations, the company partners with customers to develop, design, and manufacture innovative products with an eye toward the circular economy.
MRC