Closed Loop Partners accelerates small-format plastic recycling to meet EPR legislation

Closed Loop Partners has released a report revealing a pathway for small-format packaging material recovery, which often ends up in landfills. Small-format materials are commonly found in beauty items, medications, and food packaging.

“As brands work to meet waste reduction goals and achieve compliance with EPR legislations, the opportunity to capture previously unrecovered small-format plastic packaging can have a significant positive impact,” says Closed Loop Partners.

The report includes over two years of market research and recycling tests conducted alongside Maybelline New York and its parent company, L’Oréal Groupe, and additional partners Kraft Heinz, P&G, and Target. 

According to the findings, equipment upgrades and reconfigurations could allow the recycling of significant volumes of small-format packaging materials. The adoption of these methods could recover thousands of valuable small materials like PP from materials recovery facilities (MRFs) and glass recycling plants across the US.

Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy conducted the research alongside Circular Services, also a Closed Loop Partners company operating over 20 MRFs and municipal contracts throughout the country. 

Small-format recovery

The Closed Loop Partners’ report highlights a pathway to recovering small-format materials that would have otherwise been considered contaminants and discarded at glass recycling plants. This breakthrough reveals that they can be sorted and directed into bales for sale on the recycled materials market.

Small-format materials are often found in beauty items, medications, and food packaging.For example, upgrading glass screens — a type of material sorting equipment — at one MRF resulted in a 67% “relative reduction” in “mid-to-large-sized small plastics,” which contaminated the glass stream.

The Center for the Circular Economy collected samples from two MRFs’ glass streams and one glass recycling plant’s residue streams. The Center then trialed equipment configurations to sort plastics from these streams and sent samples to reclaimers to test their processability and market value. This process was repeated multiple times.

The report highlights five key insights critical to the recovery of small-format packaging:

• Many small-format plastic materials hold significant market value.
• Logistical solutions already exist to handle them.
• Current technologies can be adapted to recover portions of them effectively at MRFs and glass recycling plants.
• Market demand for these materials is strong, especially from mechanical recyclers.
• Targeted investment at recycling facilities is essential to build a compelling, scalable business case to recover smaller materials.

According to the Center for the Circular Economy, these findings can have ramifications for recycling facilities across the country, generating market value. Tens of thousands of tons of plastics could be recovered annually. 

Rigid plastic recovery 

Closed Loop Partners expects the Center for the Circular Economy’s findings to lay the groundwork for the establishment of the Consortium for Small-Format Packaging Recovery, which will be focused on recovery in “real-world scenarios across the US.”

The aim of the consortium is to establish and maintain a robust value chain for recovery of small materials from recyclers, reclaimers, and policymakers.

The company says that its next step will be to build upon the findings and invest in equipment and infrastructure upgrades for rigid small plastic recovery in the field. The Center for the Circular Economy anticipates “a quantifiable tonnage” of small materials to be diverted from landfills, while lowering carbon emissions and the post-consumer recycled content generated.

The Consortium for Small-Format Packaging Recovery aims to establish and maintain a robust value chain.Kate Daly, managing partner at the Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy, says: “We’re eager to put our findings to the test and, through the consortium, to recover small-format packaging, deploy equipment and infrastructure upgrades to drive real-world proof-of-concept in the field.”

“It’s critical that we advance solutions to recover valuable small-format materials, like polypropylene, that otherwise typically end up in landfills. This is inherently a cross-industry challenge, as small-format packaging is used in beauty, pharmacy, foodservice, beverage, retail, and beyond. We’re inviting our research-phase partners and brands across various sectors to join the consortium and help address an urgent waste challenge.” 

Trisha Ayyagari, global brand president at Maybelline New York, adds: “As the number one makeup brand in the world, we have a responsibility to create the most sustainable makeup life cycle possible. Most makeup packaging is too small to be recycled; it literally falls through the cracks at recycling facilities.”

“That’s why it was so important to partner with Closed Loop Partners’ Center for Circular Economy to pioneer solutions for small-format recycling and to help us and the beauty industry accelerate our sustainable transformation. We look forward to making progress together.”