Greiner Packaging invests in PET decontamination and extrusion line for UK Plastics Tax compliant solutions

07 Apr 2021 --- Greiner Packaging UK & Ireland has invested over £3.7 million (US$5.1 million) in a new PET decontamination and extrusion line, enabling the use of more recycled materials in its pot and tub range. 

Recycled flake is cleaned and washed but requires further decontamination. Greiner’s new world-class decontamination unit – installed at its factory in Dungannon, Northern Ireland – removes impurities from PET, creating a food-safe material.

The decontamination unit is integrated with a greater material feed system, directly linked to a new, state-of-the-art extrusion line.

This equipment and process arrangement provides complete flexibility with the capacity to utilize recycled input materials, virgin or a combination of both, to meet different customer requirements.

The new PET decontamination and extrusion line come as the UK edges closer to its Plastics Tax. The UK government has released draft legislation and a draft policy paper on the tax – effective from April 2022 – for public consultation.

The draft legislation is proposing a £200 (US$276) per ton tax rate for plastic packaging produced or imported into the UK with less than 30 percent recycled plastic. The measure is expected to impact around 20,000 plastics packaging producers and importers.

rPET carbon savings
Recycled plastics accessible via established circular economies are increasingly integral in fighting climate change. A landmark 2017 Alpla study found recycled PET (rPET) produces 79 percent lower CO2 emissions than virgin PET across the lifecycle.

“Investing in these two new machines is the latest step in our continued commitment to innovate, increase capacity and reduce our carbon footprint,” explains Greiner Packaging UK & Ireland CEO Philip Woolsey.

Greiner Packaging UK & Ireland CEO Philip Woolsey.“Since Greiner Packaging first introduced its K3 cardboard-plastic innovation in 2007, there has been continuous investment at our UK manufacturing facility.”

“But alongside investing to create new packaging solutions, there has been a constant focus on investing in improving our environmental sustainability performance and pursuing our goal to achieve a circular economy. We are working steadily toward the Dungannon plant becoming carbon-neutral by 2025.”

In 2010, Project Cool delivered water cooling capabilities at the Dungannon factory by introducing wind power, reducing overall energy consumption.

This project was immediately followed by the need to remove excess heat from the cooling system. Project SCool delivers the heating requirements for Integrated College close to the factory.

“From April 2019, we began the transition to meeting energy requirements solely from renewable sources. As of April 2021, we will have reached this milestone. In addition, with the introduction of LED lighting site-wide, we have reduced our energy requirement by over 500,000 kWh per annum,” says Woolsey.

Beyond rPET
Woolsey explains the new equipment allows Greiner to integrate its supply chain and soon be able to include at least 30 percent recycled content in all products.

“Rather than buying in PET sheet and selling off any waste, we can now create rPET sheet on-site, and re-use excess material,” he explains.

“Until now, we have only extruded polypropylene (PP) in Dungannon, but now we can extrude rPET, and will soon also be trialing the extrusion of recycled PP (rPP).”

“Currently, most of the recycled PET supply available in the UK originates from plastic bottles, a very clean source. The new integrated line enables ‘tray-to-tray recycling’ – meaning we can process material from a wider variety of sources and utilize a lighter grade of recyclate.”

This novel process and equipment arrangement is expected to provide greater capability to control and enhance material characteristics to meet customer’s product specifications.

“While rPET has become commonplace for chilled products such as salads, PP has remained the main material for dairy products, and we aim to offer increasing rPP content, even though food-grade PP recyclate is currently in short supply in the UK. Despite this, pilot quantities of rPP for product trials are already available,” adds Woolsey.The new PET decontamination and extrusion line come as the UK edges closer to its Plastics Tax.

Polypropylene on the rise
Greiner Packaging UK & Ireland is one of the founding members of the UK Plastics Pact. The Pact’s roadmap indicates the volume of pots, tubs and trays made from rPET will fall while chemically recycled PP will increase.

Nextek is launching a global multi-participant project called Nextloopp to advance PP recycling. Nextloopp has secured its first 29 major organizations, creating a “world-first” by closing the loop on food-grade PP, available in the UK by 2022.

“While a lot of talk in the industry is currently only about rPET, we are already in a position to favor either rPET or rPP, and can produce the majority of our products using either material,” continues Woolsey.

“Across Europe, we are already making products with rPP, and this is set to increase and will be introduced to the UK in 2021.”

Greiner recently replaced yogurt multipacks made from PS with PP, and “Project Snap” has now successfully recreated the “snap” consumers expect. Tesco was one of the first customers to move from PS multipacks to PP multipacks.

“We needed to remove PS from our packaging and Greiner helped us with the move to PP,” said Denise Mathieson, Tesco’s senior packaging manager. “However, our customers were always accustomed to the easy ‘snap’ of the old PS yogurt multipacks and we needed to further develop this feature with the new recyclable PP packaging.”

“Greiner has been at the forefront of these developments and worked with us quickly to re-engineer the PP multipack to give it the same ‘snap’ quality of PS.”

Fully recycled K3 products
A wide range of 100 percent rPET K3 products are now available using the new in-house rPET capability. Greiner’s adaptable K3 cardboard-plastic combination reduces plastic consumption while creating eye-catching packaging.

Through its reduced plastic content, K3 packaging has an improved CO2 footprint and can be recycled efficiently as the cardboard and plastic can be easily separated.

“By reducing the amount of plastic in our K3 cardboard-plastic combination product, cardboard becomes the major component, making K3 exempt from the upcoming Plastic Tax,” says Woolsey.

“This represents another significant step in our journey to helping our customers to add value while also delivering on our circular economy commitments.” 

By Joshua Poole