Dutch scientists team up with industry to evaluate recycled plastic safety

15 Jul 2024 --- The Netherlands’ Wageningen University & Research (WUR) has launched an investigation into the safety of recycled PE and PP film for use in food-contact applications. Together with 11 industrial partners, it introduces the four-year project “Flex Forward.” 

The Flex Forward project will evaluate the safety of recycled flexible PE and PP for use in food-contact-sensitive materials like cheese packaging. The data generated in the Dutch project will enable industrial parties to evaluate the suitability, safety and performance of the recycled materials.

“Newly proposed legislation will encourage or even force companies to use recycled content in their plastic packages, greatly changing how the FMCG and plastic recycling industries operate,” highlights Flex Forward.

“Expertise on plastic performance evaluation will be combined with the state-of-the-art infrastructure for analysis and identification of unknown food contaminants.”

In the project, researchers will investigate a specific method of removing contaminants — dissolution (solvent-based recycling).

Short-loop recycling technologies like dissolution are considered “climate-positive” and have a high plastic-to-plastic yield, notes Flex Forward. This recycling concept also enables the removal of contaminants such as additives.

Flexibles represent approximately 30% of the total plastic food packaging.

“Most of the recycled flexible PE and PP currently end in blended polymers suitable for low-value applications only, so a higher quality would be very welcome,” says Ingeborg Smeding, project leader at WUR.

“Within the Flex Forward consortium we will focus on achieving this in the coming four years.”

In other WUR-led research, a recent study affirmed that compostable bio-based coffee capsules are the most environmentally sustainable option when considering material circularity and GHG emissions.