Page 18 - Packaging News magazine March-April 2022

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SUSTAINABILITY | www.packagingnews.com.au | March-April 2022
Towards soft plastics circularity
Margaret Stuart, director, Corporate Affairs and Sustainability, Nestlé Oceania, shared her insights on soft plastics recycling at SPE’s ‘Packaging – Application Developments’ webinar held in February.
PRESENTED in collaboration with the Design Institute of Australia (DIA), the Society of Plastic Engineers (SPE) webinar provided a fitting platform for Margaret Stuart to elaborate on the importance of soft plastic recycling, the hurdles and potential solutions involved,
and to put forward several “where to next” scenarios.
When Nestlé’s prototype KitKat plastics wrapper, made from recycled content, hit the headlines last year, it revealed the importance of collabo- ration and contribution towards a ‘shared vision’ to close the loop on soft plastics. The project harnessed the expertise of CurbCycle, REDcycle, iQ Renew, Licella, Viva Energy Australia, LyondellBasell, Taghleef Industries and Amcor, to contribute to the pro- totype’s creation.
“We started with a trial of kerbside recycling of soft plastic with iQ Renew and CurbCycle to improve collection so we could improve recycling rates for soft plastic,” explained Stuart.
“The prototype, which used some plastic from the kerbside trial, and some from REDcycle, emerged as we asked questions about the highest pos- sible use for collected soft plastic.”
Honing in on the process of the KitKat prototype project, which involved collecting, sorting and pro- cessing soft plastics to be converted into synthetic crude oil, and then to food-grade propylene, Stuart pointed out the lessons learned, which were: (1) the need to reduce contamination for a quality feedstock, (2) the need to extract packaging with any chlorine, which led to closer examination of packaging designs and standards; and (3) the importance of collaboration.
Answering the question of “where to
next?”, Stuart said that it is important that the waste industry, three levels of government and the food and beverage industry get on board. However, she pointed out that there are significant obstacles involved in terms of the lack of standardisation, as well as the number of different parties involved in waste management, just in government and the recycling sector alone. Then, she said, there’s the fact that the country does not have collection, sorting and processing infrastructure for soft plastic at the scale needed.
On a positive note, she said that learnings from the trial have demon- strated that there is a high demand for recycled content, which was revealed when the KitKat trial was conducted, and sparked conversation about “some- thing that wasn’t really known about”.
She noted that there is a move, at pace, to collect more soft plastic. “Our initial trial on the Central Coast has expanded,” said Stuart. “There’s interest from more councils out there and there is interest from other materials recovery facilities (MRFs) on how they can man- age soft plastics within their facilities.” The government, she said, has provided funding to automate that sorting in a way that can be fitted into new works and retro-fitted into existing works.
Stuart confirmed that interest in advanced recycling is gathering pace. “We know that there is a hun- ger out there for packaging made with
ABOVE: The KitKat prototype project cycle, demonstrating that soft plastic is a resource for many possible applications.
recycled content. We can see the pack- aging value chain responding, and there’s a growing interest in invest- ing in advanced recycling,” she said.
Stuart explained that the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC), is working to develop a national plastics recycling scheme to collect and pro- cess hard-to-recycle soft plastics.
“However, it is important to remember that collected soft plastics has more uses than just advanced recycling,” she said. “Mechanical recycling also has a really important place and can be just as fantastic a use for collected soft plastic as advanced recycling.”
In closing, Stuart said, “It’s been really encouraging to see the number of organisations stepping up to this challenge but we have to make sure that we’re working towards something that is both economically and environ- mentally robust.
“For this to work, it needs to create a genuinely sustainable future for everyone.” ■
Margaret Stuart is speak- ing at the AUSPACK Leaders Forum on the topic of Corporate Social Responsibility. Book your tickets at auspack.com.au