It’s time to close the circles for plastic packaging in industry

Sustainable environment Sustainable environment

Sustainable society Sustainable society Sustainable transition

Swedish industry uses large volumes of plastic packaging. This is usually only used once before being sent for waste incineration. IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute is leading a project in which researchers and companies are working together to close the circles for plastic, in order to increase recycling.

More than 200,000 tonnes of plastic packaging are sold in Sweden every year, but not even a fifth is recycled to make new material. The incineration of plastic packaging in Sweden emits as much as a tenth of private cars.

If the recycling of plastic is increased, less fossil materials will need to be used – with the result that emissions of climateimpacting greenhouse gases will be reduced.

“In this way, the project is contributing to both economic and climate gains. And industry also gains by avoiding large values going up in flames after just a single use,” says project manager Alexandra Maria Almasi at IVL.

INDUSTRIAL PACKAGING SUITABLE FOR RECYCLING There are established collection and recycling systems for consumer packaging, but this is not the case for many types of industrial packaging. This is despite the fact that industrial packaging is often more homogeneous and less contaminated than household packaging, and therefore suitable for recycling.

“There is considerable potential to create access to clean recycled plastic that meets the market’s quality requirements. However, this requires us to start working in a more circular fashion with the plastic used in operations and industry,” says Alexandra Maria Almasi.

FOCUS ON LARGE SACKS AND POLYSTYRENE Certain types of packaging are studied in particular: • Large plastic sacks that can hold between 0.25–3 cubic metres and are used for everything from grain to construction waste.

The idea is eventually to melt down the plastic and make new sacks out of it.

• Packaging made of EPS (also known as polystyrene). There is a demand for this, which can be seen from the fact that Norway recycles more than 70 percent of EPS.

The project, which is entitled Close the Circle for Industrial Plastic, works with a holistic approach in order to renew the entire system. It involves developing technologies and business models, assessing the sustainability of the solutions, as well as analysing how the regulatory and legislative framework may need to change.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

The project Close the Circle for Industrial Plastic has broad backing from manufacturers, waste managers, researchers, etc. It is led by IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute and is funded by Vinnova and the participating industrial players.

The Close the Circle for Industrial Plastic project is aimed, for example, at finding a way to recycle the plastic from which large sacks are made. At present, they are normally only used once before being sent for incineration.

Name: Alexandra Maria Almasi

Age: 34 years

Function at IVL: Project manager within waste and resource flows at the Gothenburg office.

Background: Master’s Degree in sustainable development from Aalborg University in Denmark. Has previously driven the development of innovation projects as part of Oslo’s cleantech cluster in Norway. Joined IVL in August 2018.

To find out more, please contact: Alexandra Maria Almasi, alexandra.almasi@ivl.se, tel. 010-788 67 26

IVL CONTRIBUTES TO THE GLOBAL GOALS BY:

3.9 Reducing instances of illness and death caused by harmful chemicals and pollutants 12.2 Sustainable management and use of natural resources 12.4 Responsible management of chemicals and waste 12.5 Significantly reducing the amount of waste 14.1 Reducing marine pollution