Bringing value to black and colored plastics: PolyMet gains UK government investment

28 Feb 2019 --- The PolyMet project has been awarded £800k by the UK Government’s Innovate grant scheme to accelerate its recycling technology. The purpose of the Innovate UK grant is to help develop and bring to market the new recycling technology coined PolyMet. The technology seeks to be the first commercially accessible process for removing the pigment in colored, rigid plastics without destroying the polymers, reports Ecosurety. PolyMet has the potential to create a new market for currently low-value, unrecycled plastics through the production of a reusable plastic feedstock, according to the company.

The technology is hoped to help to mitigate the negative impact of colored plastics on the environment by diverting them away from landfill and into a circular plastics economy. The UK sends an estimated one million tons of colored, rigid plastics such as single-use black plastic food trays to landfill or incineration each year.

Unlike clear or white plastic, colored plastics – particularly black – cannot be detected by machines used in the plastic sorting process and the dark pigment limits its uses. As a result, these plastics have a lower market value and most Material Recycling Facilities (MRF’s) view them as contaminants, with landfill or incineration often the most cost-effective options for their disposal.

P&G has put forward watermarking technology as a technique to increase the recycling levels for black and colored plastic, however, Tom Rose, Innovation Manager at Impact Solutions, notes several challenges in this. “Technologies such as watermarking only allows the identification and separation of black plastics, which can already be done by a variety of systems. Ultimately, however, they do not address the larger challenge of the limited market for black or colored recyclate,” he tells PackagingInsights.  Plastic technology expert at Impact Solutions.

“The benefit of PolyMet is we can remove the color from the recyclate dramatically increasing the potential usage of the material. PolyMet is, therefore, a complementary technology to systems such as watermarking as it allows the sorted materials to be sold into a much larger market,” Rose says.

How does it work?
Impact Solutions’ PolyMet technology uses a chemical process to remove the pigment from colored rigid plastics without destroying the original plastic polymers. With the colored pigment removed, PolyMet-treated plastic then becomes a material that can be reincorporated into the plastic manufacturing process as a high-value recyclate.

By using PolyMet in line with current recycling processes, a new stream of plastic feedstock could be created by reprocessors at high volume and low cost. Additionally, plastic manufacturing companies could incorporate the recycled plastic into their virgin resin grades, helping them to reach the 30 percent recycled plastic target recently proposed by Government.

An increase in the amount of plastic available for recycling would simultaneously increase the number of Packaging Recovery Notes (PRNs) available. Ecosurety analysis has shown that increasing the number of plastic PRNs by 1 percent could prompt a 10 percent reduction in their price, thereby helping to stabilize the cost of recycling evidence for producers while assisting the UK to build a more circular plastic economy.

“As plastic technology specialists, finding a solution to the 3.5 million tons of plastic material currently being dumped in landfill by the UK each year was a challenge we couldn’t resist. This grant is welcome recognition of the work we have undertaken so far and an endorsement of the positive impact that PolyMet could have for producers, reprocessors and on the environment. We look forward to working with Ecosurety, Impact Recycling and McLaren Plastics over the next two years with the shared vision of creating a new technology that can transform the UK recycling market through increased capacity, revenue and jobs,” says Rose.

The Innovate UK grant will see Ecosurety provide consultancy support on the two-year PolyMet project, offering market insights from its producer and reprocessor members to ensure the technology is developed in line with industry requirements. McLaren Plastics will specify post-process material properties and validation of material suitability for injection molding – a key route-to-market validation step.

The vision is for PolyMet to become a low-cost technology that can easily be incorporated into existing recycling facilities. By providing an alternative to plastic material being landfilled or incinerated, PolyMet could create jobs in a number of regions across the UK while moving the UK’s recycling sector towards a more transparent, resilient and sustainable future.

In a black plastic innovation from last year, The Collective – a gourmet yogurt brand based in Somerset, UK – revealed that its black lids would become 100 percent recyclable in the UK first for the food and drink industry. The technological advancement uses green pigment so that the black lids will be picked up on conveyor belts: meaning they will not be classed as waste and incinerated – as is the typical destiny for black plastics. 

By Laxmi Haigh