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Introducing NextCycle IMLTM The Art of Recycling
Innovation Introducing NextCycle IMLTM
The Art of Recycling
Industry pioneer MCC Verstraete continues its strong innovation drive with NextCycle IMLTM – a revolutionary in mold labeling (IML) solution developed to maximize the value of recycled PP (rPP), as brand owners face more stringent legislation, and the packaging community moves ever closer towards a circular economy for rigid plastics.
Benedict Huysman, Product Innovation Project Lead at MCC Verstraete
The latest in a series of market-leading innovations from MCC Verstraete, NextCycle IML™ adds significant recycling benefits to the already established recognition of IML as the most sustainable and efficient decoration process for rigid plastic packaging. Developed to enable brand owners meet the targets for recycled content in plastics packaging as set out in the forthcoming legislation and any other regional regulatory requirements, NextCycle IML™ comes with full Technology Approval from RecyClass.
“MCC Verstraete is committed to a sustainability strategy with a clear vision and mission, continuing to set higher standards for a sustainable future for IML in anticipation of more market regulation. NextCycle IML™ is a completely new concept which promises to disrupt the rigid PP packaging and recycling industry by enabling high purity, and potentially even food grade, rPP to be derived from mechanical recycling,” said Nico Van de Walle, Product & Circular Economy Manager. “This is an important new milestone not just for MCC Verstraete, but for the entire rigid PP packaging industry.”
Addressing the bottleneck
NextCycle IML™ technology will help resolve the current bottleneck by enabling recyclers to provide large quantities of improved quality rPP to meet the growing demand. Engineered for mechanical recycling, the innovation has already been classified as “fully compatible with the existing European industrial recycling processes for PP containers” by RecyClass, the cross-industry initiative from Plastics Recyclers Europe which evaluates the recyclability of plastic packaging.
Today, the majority of food-grade rPP comes from chemical recycling, but this process is quite expensive and lacks the volume to meet the market need for foodgrade rPP as this continues to increase exponentially. Secondly, chemical recycling is not always recognized as recycling which could cause problems in the future, and there are still many ongoing discussions around the overall environmental impact. In contrast, mechanical recycling offers the potential to improve and increase rPP output with NextCycle IML™, at lower cost and without any changes to the process.
Meeting the challenge
The challenge for the Product Innovation Team was to devise a new product that built on the excellent recycling properties of standard IML, which has been the best-in-class solution for rigid plastic packaging for over 30 years.
Standard IML decoration uses polypropylene (PP) label material which is printed on an offset press before being fused onto a PP container during the molding process. As a mono-material solution, IML packaging can be sorted and recycled very easily, making it so far one of the most environmentally friendly solutions on the market.
“IML has always been ahead of its time because it can be recycled in the normal waste streams; this
has been the case for decades, but we are searching for more sustainable solutions for the future, such as NextCycle IML™, because we know that we have to do even better for our customers and for the planet,” said Nico.
With the NextCycle IML™ technology, mechanically recycled transparent IML packaging can be turned into transparent rPP, white NextCycle IML™ packaging into white rPP. Put simply, the company has found an innovative way to ensure that a fully decorated IML packaging can be mechanically recycled without any impact of the IML label on the rPP, without any additional investment needed from neither the recycler nor the packaging converter.
“The biggest challenge in this development was to create the perfect adhesion that will simultaneously allow the label to stay securely on the container during the product’s lifecycle right through to waste sorting but will then also release easily once it enters the grinding process,” explained Benedict Huysman, Product Innovation Project Lead at MCC Verstraete.
So how does it work?
“One of the benefits of NextCycle IML™ is that the consumer does not have to get actively involved but can simply recycle the PP container in the usual way,” continued Benedict. “All the action happens at the recycling plant, where the NextCycle IML™ printed
Nico Van de Walle, Product & Circular Economy Manager at MCC Verstraete
label separates automatically and fully from the PP container during the grinding process.”
All post consumer packaging waste that enter the MRF are sorted according to type to ensure the purity of the end product. At the recycling plant the sorted packaging waste is grinded and at this very moment, the NextCycle IML™ label automatically detaches from the packaging. Once the flakes have been washed and dried in the normal way, the lighter label flakes are separated from the heavy fraction container flakes using air elutriation. These clean container flakes are collected and extruded into clean rPP pellets which are used for for final rPP compounding and eventually new packaging. The label flakes as part of the light fraction can still be recycled as part of the colored rPP stream or send for chemical recycling. So all elements of the initial packaging are being recycled in practice without any material losses or residue.
Another critical aspect of NextCycle IML™ is that the offset-printed decoration is done with special nonbleeding printing inks, which avoids problems with the water becoming contaminated during the washing process.
As the ultimate validation, NextCycle IML™ has been granted RecyClass Technology Approval which means it has been tested under authorized lab conditions according to established protocols and deemed to be fully compatible with EU rigid PP recycling streams. The RecyClass approval covers colored, including white, and rigid PP packaging.
And what is the outcome?
Packaging decorated with NextCycle IML™ can be recycled via the established mechanical method without any modifications. Vitally, the outcome is ‘clean’ rPP that enables the potential to produce food-grade rPP, which is a huge achievement and the start of a new era in sustainability for IML. For brand owners, the better quality rPP will support them in achieving recycled content targets and could offer the potential to be awarded bonuses within the future modulated EPR schemes.
“We are convinced that NextCycle IML™’s excellent value proposition and the positive contribution it makes to the circular economy mean that this solution will gradually replace standard IML with Europe as first mover market,” said Nico. “We have fixed the roof before it starts raining so to speak, because there is no doubt that future legislation will demand even more content of rPP in food packaging applications. This is MCC Verstraete optimizing IML technology because we take our responsibility very seriously and support the market any way we can.”
In conclusion, Benedict added, “This is an incredibly important innovation and a big accomplishment for everyone involved in bringing it to market. We are now working to expand the portfolio to offer the NextCycle IML™ technology for all our look and feel options, because we believe that we have the best future-proof IML solution for the circular economy.”
Learn everything about the next generation of IML!
5 things to remember about NextCycleTM
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