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NextCycle IML™: A milestone in the closed loop for food grade rPP
Food-grade rPP NextCycle IML™ : A milestone in the closed loop for food-grade rPP
Polypropylene is one of the most dominant polymers in the packaging industry. As brands pledge to reduce the environmental impact of their packaging, the demand for recycled content in plastic packaging continues to rise.
Brands and retailers need to take a ‘Design for recycled content approach’ if we are to make a sizeable shift in the plastic circular economy. As such we need packaging designed for the plastic circular economy and investment in the latest technologies to produce high quality recyclates. This will mean using rPE or rPP when possible. Better still, using it in preference to virgin.
Dedicated to finding a solution to turn post-consumer packaging into circular recycled polypropylene, MCC Verstraete became part of the NEXTLOOPP project.
NEXTLOOPP is developed by Nextek, an independent consultancy that provides technological solutions to the challenges of the plastic recycling. The NEXTLOOPP project’s goal is to close the loop on post-consumer polypropylene in order to produce
Prof. Edward Kosior, Managing Director at Nextek
food-grade material, by improving current sorting and decontamination processes to increase economic efficiency.
This seamlessly coincides with the recent launch of NextCycle IML™
“MCC Verstraete’s NextCycle IML™ innovative technology is the product of in-depth research into mono-material IML packaging that is fully recyclable.
Their ground-breaking intelligent in-mold labels allow for best in class recycling of decorated mono-material IML packaging. By meshing the unique innovative IML solution with the state-of-the-art sorting and decontamination process developed by Nextek Ltd, we are now able to demonstrate that fully decorated PP IML packs can be recycled into food-grade rPP that can be turned back into new food IML packaging.
This is a major milestone in MCC Verstraete’s quest to increase the availability of affordable high-quality food-grade mechanically recycled PP,” says Prof. Edward Kosior, Managing Director at Nextek.
“In the Borealis Circular Sustainable Cascade model, the highest priority is put on Advanced
Mechanical Recycling.
Several innovation projects are in progress to further enhance mechanical recycling of products using feedstock based on post-consumer recyclate (PCR). The NextCycle
IML™ innovation is a breakthrough, which allows to make major steps towards an upgraded mechanically recycled polypropylene (rPP). This can be seen as a new step towards making the impossible – possible! We are in the right process flow of launching in the near future advanced mechanically recycled
PP approved for food packaging.”
Peter Voortmans, Global Commercial Director Consumer Products at Borealis Group
