SABIC has leveraged its successful ties with Polivouga, a manufacturer of flexible film products with operations in Portugal, to launch a new TRUCIRCLE project designed to reuse post-consumer plastic waste recovered from areas up to 50km inland from waterways that has the potential to end up in our rivers and oceans, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.
The collaboration with the Nueva Pescanova Group, a Spanish brand owner specializing in the fishing, farming, processing and marketing of fresh, chilled and frozen seafood products, has resulted in the development of the world’s first frozen food packaging solution using SABIC’s certified circular polyethylene (PE) from feedstock sourced from ocean bound plastic. The new sustainable packaging will be launched to coincide with World Oceans Day 2022.
The ocean bound plastic is converted using advanced recycling into an alternative feedstock which SABIC uses to produce certified circular polymers - SABIC linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) and low density polyethylene (LDPE) for further processing to flexible packaging film by Polivouga. Then, Nueva Pescanova packages its frozen seafood in bags made from this film.
The collaboration is SABIC’s first TRUCIRCLE project using recycled ocean bound plastic in certified circular PE. Sami Al-Osaimi, Vice President PE & Sales at SABIC said, “This is an exciting circular packaging solution for us, since it demonstrates how used plastic that has the potential to end up in our oceans, can be brought back into a circular material stream to be converted into high quality food packaging. It also underlines SABIC’s commitment to the United Nations’ Strategic Development Goal 14 for life below water. The results once again demonstrate the art of the possible when dedicated value chain partners collaborate with the aim of making a difference.”
As MRC wrote previously, earlier this month, SABIC announced a new collaboration with Kraton to deliver certified renewable butadiene from its TRUCIRCLE portfolio for use in Kraton’s certified renewable styrenic block copolymers.
According to MRC''s ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,487,450 tonnes in 2021, up by 13% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased.
SABIC is a diversified company manufacturing chemicals, industrial polymers, fertilizers and metals. It is the largest state-owned company in Saudi Arabia. SABIC is currently the world's second largest ethylene glycol producer, the third largest polyethylene producer, and the fourth largest polypropylene producer.
MRC