Page 16 - Packaging News May-June 2021

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SUSTAINABILITY www.packagingnews.com.au | May-June 2021
Closing the loop on soft plastics
A coalition of companies with a shared vision to close the loop on soft plastics have produced the country’s first prototype soft plastic food wrapper made with recycled content for Nestlé’s KitKat brand of chocolate bars. Lindy Hughson reports.
through the process, we were able to overcome them, as everyone could see the importance of the longer term goal.
“This prototype KitKat pack has been developed specifically to dem- onstrate that Australian industry has the willingness and capability to engage on the challenge of improving the future of soft plastics, and to show what’s possible.”
Amcor Flexibles director of sustain- ability, Richard Smith, weighs in, tell- ing PKN: “This collaboration provides evidence of how soft plastics can be part of the circular economy when stakeholders across the entire value chain work together.”
Smith adds, “Soft plastics are a great packaging format, which are strong, have great barrier properties, are light- weight and cost efficient. And now we know they can be recycled and reused in packaging. All of the benefits of soft plastics are retained and there is also less waste in the environment.”
Turning soft plastic back into oil is currently the only path plastic waste can take if it is to be transformed into a food safe wrapper. Unfortunately, this is technology that Australia does not have yet at scale.
“The prototype has demonstrated that there’s a pathway to improve the future for soft plastics in Australia, however, collection and processing need to be scaled up,” Nordsvan says.
“To build this at scale, across all
FOOD grade recycled soft plastic packaging is a vital missing link in Australia’s bid to improve waste management and build a circular economy, and the prototype KitKat wrapper represents Australia’s opportunity to close the loop on
recycling soft plastics.
The coalition behind the project
comprises Nestlé (the program lead), CurbCycle, iQ Renew, Licella, Viva Energy Australia, LyondellBasell, REDcycle, Taghleef Industries and Amcor – all of whom brought their individual expertise to the table for the prototype’s creation.
HOW THE PROTOTYPE WAS MADE
The process for making the prototype was complex. Soft plastics, which were collected (via REDcycle and CurbCycle kerbside collection) sorted and cleaned by iQ Renew, were then converted by technology startup Licella into liquid Plasticrude – a syn- thetic crude oil consisting of 100 per cent recycled plastic. The Plasticrude was fed into Viva Energy’s Geelong Refinery where it was processed in the Residual Catalytic Cracking Unit
(RCCU) to turn it into the basis of the polymer products created by LyondellBasell. The food-grade pro- pylene created by LyondellBasell was converted by Taghleef Industries into a metallised film, which was in turn converted and printed by Amcor Flexibles into the prototype KitKat wrapper, before delivery to Nestlé.
From idea to production, the wrap- per was four months in the making, Nestlé’s head of packaging Jacky Nordsvan tells PKN.
“As we’ve sought to find ways to improve the future for plastic in Australia, we’ve talked with organ- isations right through the value chain. The concept for the prototype emerged from those discussions and in particular, from the work that we’re doing with iQ Renew on a kerb- side trial to collect soft plastics. We wanted to find a way to demonstrate what’s possible,” she said.
“A collaboration of this many com- panies, right through a circular value chain which we’d never explored before, was new for everyone, and required everyone to think differently. While challenges were inevitable right
ABOVE & FAR RIGHT: The metallised film, made by Taghleef Industries,
was converted by Amcor Flexibles into the prototype recycled KitKat wrapper.