Food tray recycling method launched


Monday, 18 September, 2023

Food tray recycling method launched

A recycler in Spain has identified a way to apply Nexam Chemical’s Reactive Recycling technology to enable closed-loop recycling of food trays into new food trays, preventing them from incineration or reaching landfill.

The collaboration launched earlier this year and has rapidly passed through commercial discussions and initial trials. The first full-scale production run will convert 750 tonnes of PET into new upgraded raw material for food tray production, using containers that would have otherwise been removed from the recycling loop in some way, such as incineration, saving up to 1250 tonnes of CO2e. Traditionally, PET bottles are recycled but trays are currently not recycled to the same extent.

“This is a new, exciting application area where we see a large potential, with more and more companies venturing into recycling of other sources of PET rather than just bottles,” said Ronnie Törnqvist, CEO of Nexam Chemical.

“This is the first order to a PET recycling company, a player further upstream in the rPET value chain than our current customer base,” said Henrik Bernquist, Nexam’s Business Manager Recycling. “Despite the relatively small size of the order of 0.5 MSEK, the environmental impact and the future business potential are substantial.”

Image credit: iStock.com/FotografiaBasica

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