Thailand-based chemical company Indorama Ventures and Evertis have partnered to use flake from recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) trays to make PET film for food packaging trays.
The collaboration is expected to move PET trays away from landfill or incineration to help achieve the EU’s recycling targets and develop a circular economy for PET trays.
Currently, Indorama Ventures’ Verdun facility is producing recycled PET (rPET) from post-consumer trays at a commercial scale. These flakes have a similar quality to flakes originating from bottles.
Thailand-based Indorama said that the development supports a closed-loop economy for PET trays. It offers consumers more sustainable alternatives and helps packaging makers to achieve their recycled content goals.
Additionally, the development protects and preserves food to reduce the about 154 million tonnes of food waste, worth €143bn, generated throughout the EU.
Evertis chief sustainability officer Marta Matos Gil said: “Indorama Ventures’ innovative recycling methods show how we can create a truly circular economy by developing infrastructure and capacity to collect, sort and recycle PET trays and transform them back into valuable raw material.
“This partnership helps Evertis to meet our sustainability goals and boost our product innovation in terms of circularity, recyclability, and eco-design.
“This is crucial in the current market, where our clients face new packaging regulations and consumers are concerned about the environmental impact of the products they buy. Evertis can meet both those needs.”
The new tray-to-tray recycling workstream will increase the overall amount of recycled PET available in the market and divert around 50 million post-consumer PET trays from landfill or incineration per year.
Furthermore, the deal is expected to aid Evertis in achieving the target of 50% post-consumer recycled content in products by 2025, the Thai chemical company said.
Indorama ESG council chairman Yash Lohia said: “We can support a circular economy by conducting rigorous testing at every stage of the process, from sorting and recycling to conversion, to ensure the highest quality.
“Our Deja sustainable ingredients brand, including rPET, supports the EU’s plastic collection and recycling targets.”