Page 17 - Packaging News May-June 2021

May-June 2021 | www.packagingnews.com.au SUSTAINABILITY
17
states and territories, across hun- dreds of councils, is going to take a huge effort from government at all levels, from industry and from con- sumers, but we believe it can be done.
“Manufacturers like Nestlé will have a key role in driving demand for food grade recycled soft plastic pack- aging, and creating market conditions that will ensure all stakeholders throughout the value chain view soft plastics as a resource and not waste.”
THE STARTING POINT
The initiative emerged from a proj- ect underway on the NSW Central Coast, where Australian recycler iQ Renew and Nestlé are working together on a trial of kerbside collec- tion of soft plastics.
These collected plastics, together with plastics collected via REDcycle supermarket soft plastic collection and the CurbCycle Curby Program, formed the starting point for the project.
To date, soft plastics collected in Australia have been made into prod- ucts like outdoor furniture, added to road base or used in waste to energy.
“To improve the recycling rate of soft plastics, kerbside collection is an important point of convenience,” explains iQ Renew CEO Danial Gallagher.
“In the trial, soft plastics are col- lected from kerbside recycling bins in a dedicated bright yellow bag, then sorted from the recycling stream at our MRF.
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.” — Jacky Nordsvan, Nestlé
“To create the KitKat wrapper with 30 per cent recycled content, the soft plastics were processed, then sent to Licella for conversion back into the oil from which they originally came. This oil was then used to produce new food grade soft plastics.”
According to Tanya Barden, CEO of the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC), learnings from the Central Coast trial will be informa- tive as the AFGC works to develop an extended producer responsibility scheme for hard to recycle plastics.
“Among other things, we’ll be look- ing at how this model can be scaled up, ensuring there is healthy demand for packaging with recycled content and helping bring to life local indus- tries that can unlock billions of dol- lars of value that’s currently lost to landfill,” Barden continues.
LOCAL ADVANCED RECYCLING
Nestlé, Licella, iQ Renew and LyondellBasell, along with supermar- ket retailer Coles, have also come together to undertake a joint feasibility study to determine the technical, eco- nomic and environmental benefits of a local advanced recycling industry.
The feasibility study will look at potential sites in Victoria for an advanced recycling facility using Australian hydrothermal liquefac- tion technology called Catalytic Hydrothermal Reactor (Cat-HTR), developed by Licella.
“Advanced recycling in Australia can give food brands access to the food-grade recycled packaging they want, while giving Victoria an oppor- tunity to lead the nation in creating a circular economy for plastics,” says Dr Len Humphreys, Licella CEO.
For brand owners like Coles and Nestlé, the potential to completely close the loop on soft plastics and con- vert it into food-grade plastics for their packaging, would be a game changer.
Sandra Martinez, Nestlé Austra- lia CEO says, “While Nestlé wants to reduce its use of virgin plastics and increase our use of recycled packaging, this won’t happen with- out the whole plastics value chain working together.”
With the National Packaging Targets requiring industry to use an average of 50 per cent recycled con- tent in packaging by 2025, the demand for food-grade recycled plas- tic is expected to grow significantly, underscoring the importance of developing advanced recycling for soft plastics on home turf. ■
LEFT: Curby Program soft plastic bales
at IQ Renew’s recycling facility collected
from kerbside recycling bins in the Central Coast, NSW.