Henkel’s “social plastic” fulfills “quality criteria” for use in packaging

09 Oct 2018 --- Henkel teamed up with social enterprise Plastic Bank one year ago to collect waste before it enters the oceans. At the collection centers in Haiti, the local population can return collected plastic waste and exchange it for money, goods, or services. The so-called “Social Plastic” is then integrated back into the plastic value chain. Now for the first time, Henkel included this Social Plastic in its packaging.

Experts from Laundry & Home Care’s packaging development department successfully integrated the recycled plastic in 25,000 bottles for laundry and cleaning products. 

“We are very pleased with the initial pilot projects of integrating Social Plastic in our packaging. The packaging fulfilled all quality criteria and thus, the products successfully entered the market,” says Vineet Varman, Packaging Manager for Laundry Care. “We want to include even more Social Plastic in our product packaging in the future.”

As part of the partnership of Henkel and Plastic Bank, three plastic collection centers in Haiti were opened this year. The collected plastic is sorted, processed and then integrated into recycling value chains as Social Plastic – material that has been verified by the Plastic Bank to indicate that the collectors received an above-market price for the plastic waste. 

Henkel has set itself the objective to explore ways of incorporating Social Plastic into its own product packaging to further promote a circular economy.

“There are in fact less challenges than we thought at the beginning, regarding R&D challenges in using the social plastics. One of the reasons is that social plastic is generally very close to other post-consumer plastics. But there are of course other challenges that are remaining; mainly in the cleaning process of the collected plastic. Hence, the research we are conducting together with our technology partners focusses on a more efficient process to benefit from the scalability of the model,” Thomas Müller-Kirschbaum, Head of Global Research and Development in Henkel’s Laundry & Home Care tells PackagingInsights.

However, “the infrastructure in Haiti does not allow for recycling the collected plastic packs into high quality recycled resins. That is why we are working together with Plastic Bank on this topic,” he adds.

“The next step is to further scale Social Plastic. Our plan is to open recollection center in other emerging markets. At best, in markets in which there is a high amount of ocean-bound plastic as well as a need for income opportunities for poorer people,” says Müller-Kirschbaum.

The pilot projects with Social Plastic are underlining Henkel’s long-lasting commitment for sustainability, also in the field of packaging. Recently, Henkel introduced its new packaging strategy. Together with its partners along the value chain Henkel wants to promote sustainable development. 

Therefore, the company defined specific initiatives for the three key phases of a circular value chain: Materials from sustainable sources, smart packaging design, closing the loop. 

Additionally, Henkel has set itself ambitious targets: By 2025, 100 percent of the packaging will be recyclable, reusable or compostable. Within the same timeframe, Henkel aims to use 35 percent recycled plastic for its consumer goods products in Europe. You can read more on this story here.

By Laxmi Haigh