In fact, among companies in those segments, nearly half say post consumer recycled resin is playing a significant role in their sustainable packaging strategies, according to Jabil&#;s recent study . Consumer packaged goods companies have a strong tendency (64%) to incorporate post consumer material and other recycled content as part of their product-level initiatives. Download the full survey report.
For more information, please visit EcoPlas.
Ask many of the world's leading brands about their sustainable packaging plans and they will tell you: they aim to make their packaging 100% reusable or recyclable by . More specifically, many plan to source post-consumer recycled (PCR) materials&#;such as post consumer recycled resin&#;to get there. This sentiment is echoed across the entire landscape of food and beverage , as well as personal and home care segments.
While post consumer recycled resin seems to be the leading option to accomplish packaging sustainability in the industry, there are several considerations to make when sourcing PCR material:
There are four main plastics used in packaging: polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Currently, high density polyethylene (HDPE) and PET recycling are more common than others. The infrastructure is built to support the collection of these materials and many CPGs lead initiatives to educate consumers to recycle. PP is readily recyclable but needs more infrastructure and education around the material. Finally, PS is also recyclable as it is extremely tolerant to &#;re-melting,&#; but its collection presents difficulties due to its form factor.
Certain plastics are like oil and water&#;they don&#;t mix well. The contamination caused by their mixing, or worse yet, the addition of other factors (such as food, dirt, or other contaminants) can render the resins very difficult to reuse. The makeup of the post consumer resins can be a big obstacle in the industry&#;s endeavor to achieve a truly circular economy, which is a critical piece for packaging sustainability.
In addition, based on your company&#;s performance requirements of the product, the mixing of the materials can lead to further complications in achieving goals. Almost 60% of European plastics converting companies find it &#;hard&#; or &#;very hard&#; to reuse plastic scrap due to contamination, according to a European Plastics Converters Association study.
Then how can you ensure 100% purity for packaging materials?
The first step is to establish a set of recycled material goals for your product. Then, you need to partner with your supplier to evaluate and understand their sources and supply chain. They must have the appropriate quality controls and tests in place to ensure the material supplied meets your product&#;s specifications.
Therefore, it is imperative that you have full visibility into your supplier ecosystem and a strong understanding of how the post-consumer recycled plastic was sourced, processed and produced.
Not every type of recycled resin works for every use case or complies with applicable regulations.
In the United States, the FDA has guidelines for the use of recycled plastics in food packaging. Specifically, they have three concerns that:
Europe has more stringent guidelines. Under a regulation set over a decade ago, only &#;food-contact materials and articles that contain recycled plastic obtained from an authorized recycling process&#; may be used in the EU.
It is very likely that in the future more industry standards will be developed, and perhaps also government regulation, to ensure the material really is what it should be. Brands once again can partner with governments worldwide to help shape regulation and drive post consumer recycled content forward.
Over the long term, this area will become more like medicine or food&#;when we go to a grocery or drug store, we hardly ever think about whether the medicine or food is &#;good&#; or &#;safe.&#; We rely on the system in the background which ensures that it is.
Finding a steady source of high-quality post consumer recycled plastic is a difficult endeavor today. Consumers are not yet recycling enough plastic waste worldwide&#;which drastically impacts the supply. The reasons vary from geographically different regulations to the additional cost customers must occasionally incur to recycle. Furthermore, while many understand the importance of recycling, many are also confused on how to properly do it.
With such high demand for recycled materials, brands and packaging integrators must treat the sourcing of these resins as a partnership with their supplier, rather than a transactional exchange. Unlike sourcing virgin material, brands, converters and suppliers must work as a team and make the proper investments to build a viable infrastructure. Sometimes, that means launching community initiatives.
PepsiCo, for example, recognizes the importance of bringing all stakeholders together. To support the development of packaging sustainability, they launched PepsiCo Recycling, an initiative to improve plastics recycling infrastructure and raise awareness on the issue worldwide. With their partnerships through the program, they&#;ve provided recycling access to 33 million households across 700 communities in the U.S. since , collecting more than 115 million pounds of plastic bottle and recyclables.
The company is the world’s best Post Consumer Recycled Resin supplier. We are your one-stop shop for all needs. Our staff are highly-specialized and will help you find the product you need.
These types of partnerships and investments can help you reach your sustainable packaging goals while making a big difference for the environment. Watch Jabil's documentary: The Sustainable Packaging Revolution for a better understanding of how integrators like Jabil, KW Plastics and Danimer Scientific are bringing innovative packaging solutions to the market.
While long-term partnerships and investments into the larger ecosystem will help to ensure a steady supply of post-consumer recycled resins, end-of-life must be addressed at the very beginning with product design. As it stands currently, approximately 30 percent of plastic packaging will never be reused or recycled without fundamental redesign or innovation, according to the World Economic Forum.
The current recycling infrastructure needs an overhaul, but brands can design their packages to optimize recyclability while working within the boundaries of the current infrastructure. This can be accomplished in different ways, such as making components out of a single polymer family, tethering a cap to a bottle or by minimizing how the packaging is assembled so it can be easily separated when necessary.
When designing product packaging, end-of-life must be top-of-mind. Otherwise, your company is contributing to the same problem it&#;s trying to overcome.
FDA approved
Reduced environmental impact
Reuses recovered plastics such as single-use items
Fully recyclable
PCR (Post-Consumer Resin) is plastic that has already been recycled and is repurposed, ready to use again.
It begins with the collection and sorting of recycled products &#; plastic bottles for example. These bottles are then separated from the other plastics, washed and cleaned of all other materials (for example the labels, bottle tops etc). The recycled plastic is then extruded and reprocessed into PCR.
As post-consumer resin consists of a blend of recycled resins (that would have otherwise ended up in landfills) it is known that there can be minor defects on the packaging and slight variations in color. However, these minor defects do not affect the overall function of the product and are strictly cosmetic.
By choosing a reliable packaging supplier, you can greatly mitigate these issues. At Emmerson Packaging, we have a graphics department that has collectively over 150 years of prepress experience. From your designs, we can develop your graphic materials that will yield optimal print quality on our presses.
While there may be a small cosmetic compromise, it is a lot less than the compromise made on the environment. When marketed properly, your customers may be willing to pay more for those imperfections &#; knowing your organization is taking steps toward environmental sustainability.
What makes post-consumer resin a powerful product is that it has already been processed from fossil fuel to plastic, meaning there is no further impact on the environment, so PCR can be used again and again &#; which has long-lasting benefits not only for the environment, but on your customer retention and advocacy.
Sustainable packaging reduces excess and uses renewable materials that are lightweight, making a positive impact on the circular economy through manufacturing, distribution, and disposal. Discover the impact your sustainable packaging choice will have on the environment with our interactive comparison tool. Calculate your results now.
For more information, please visit Post-Consumer Plastic Reuse.