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So how does Unilever, with more than 400 brands worldwide, requiring a range of packaging formats and materials, intend to reach its circular economy goals by 2025? Says the company, “Our four commitments demand a fundamental rethink in our approach to our packaging and products. It requires us to introduce new and innovative packaging materials and scale up new business models … at an unprecedented speed and intensity.” One technology opening up entirely new opportunities for sourcing recycled-content plastics, including for food packaging applications, is advanced recycling. In August 2020, Unilever’s Magnum brand became the first in the ice cream category to use recycled plastic in its packaging, rolling out more than 7 million ice cream tubs made with certified circular polypropylene from SABIC’s TRUCIRCLE™ initiative. TRUCIRCLE involves taking mixed plastic waste and recycling it through pyrolysis into an oil that can be used as the feedstock to produce a range of plastics with the same characteristics and functionality as virgin plastic. “Chemical recycling can play a complementary route to mechanical recycling,” says Sanjeev Das, Global Packaging Director, in Foods & Refreshment, for Unilever. “Although there have been recycled polypropylene options available for beauty and personal care products for some time, there were previously no solutions approved for use in food-grade packaging. So, Chemical producer SABIC creates plastic resin using pyrolysis oil made from mixed we collaborated with SABIC to develop one. The plastic waste. The resulting resin is then then used by Magnum for its packaging, which recycled polypropylene used in Magnum is not can be recycled after use, creating a circular system for single-use plastics. obtained by traditional mechanical recycling, as this is not suitable for food contact packaging. The technology used alpolyethylene, low-density polyethylene, polystyrene, and polypropyllows us to recycle low-quality, mixed plastic waste that would otherwise ene, that would otherwise be incinerated, sent to a landfill, or downmost likely be destined for incineration or landfill. It is not currently cycled. This includes multilayer flexible films that can’t be recycled, as possible to produce food-grade recycled polypropylene with any other well as monolayer films that, while recyclable, are oftentimes used for form of recycling system.” non-packaging applications such as synthetic lumber for decking or park benches. Plastic Energy uses a patented pyrolysis technology described by the company as Thermal Anaerobic Conversion (TAC) to recycle the materiBased in Saudi Arabia, SABIC is a producer of diversified chemicals, als. Explains Vester, “In the case of pyrolysis, you heat the plastics, but including high-performance plastics. At the World Economic Forum in you make sure there’s no oxygen in the reactor. The plastics then break Davos, Switzerland, in January 2020, the company shared its plans for down and form mainly a liquid product that has properties similar to TRUCIRCLE, a portfolio of solutions that include design for recyclabilthe feedstock that we use today to make plastics. We call that feedstock ity, mechanically recycled products, certified renewables products from pyrolysis oil.” bio-based feedstock, and—of particular interest to Unilever—certified He adds that one of the differences between pyrolysis oil and the circular products from feedstock recycling of plastic waste streams. crude oil, or naphtha, that is traditionally used to produce plastics is As Mark Vester, Circular Economy Leader at SABIC, explains, SABthat pyrolysis oil needs to be purified to remove contaminants, such as IC is now producing an ISCC (International Sustainability & Carbon PVC, ink contaminants, food waste, or chlorides, before use. “Pyrolysis Certification)-certified circular polymer resin from a feedstock known oil has a very particular blend in terms of contaminants because it origias Tacoil, a pyrolysis oil from U.K.-based Plastic Energy Ltd. Tacoil is nates from waste and not from the soil,” he says. made from low-quality, mixed plastic waste, including high-density
Drop-in plastic made from mixed waste
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