Ineos Styrolution markets yogurt cups containing mechanical recycled polystyrene
Ineos Styrolution has completed its first project of a mechanically recycled polystyrene-based yoghurt cup. The yogurts will arrive early this year on the shelves of Lidl supermarkets.
The achievement is a collaboration of multiple partners along the value chain.
The global styrenics supplier says that the process of mechanically recycling polystyrene involves multiple steps, from sorting (deep NIR sorting, including object recognition) through hot washing and flake sorting to melt filtration and pelletizing.
Dr. Frank Eisenträger, environmental control officer and market development manager at Ineos Styrolution, says: “Polystyrene arrived in the champions league of recycled food contact materials. It will enable producers to meet the new requirements of the new EU regulation for packaging and packaging waste (PPWR).”
Lena Lembach, senior packaging development, Unternehmensgruppe Theo Müller, adds: “This is a milestone achievement on our common way to perfect circularity for polystyrene cups and toward the fulfillment of the PPWR requirements as well as our own CO2 footprint reduction targets.”
Meeting consumer standards
Key in the process is Ineos Styrolution’s “super clean process” which has been registered as a novel technology according to the EU regulation 2022/1616. With this process, Ineos Styrolution achieves food contact quality recyclates which was previously only known from PET bottle recyclates.
The recycled material offers the same physical properties as conventionally produced polystyrene, enabling circularity. Ineos Styrolution says that quality controls were performed on the material and the cups.
Additionally, detailed analyzes are required for the EFSA evaluation of the new technology. Moreover, the environmental footprint of the recycled material is significantly lower than that of conventionally produced material, according to the company.
A first consumer test on the acceptance of the recyclate-containing cup and the cup color was conducted in spring 2024 in collaboration with Unternehmensgruppe Theo Müller, one of Germany’s leading dairy manufacturers. Several hundred yogurt cups made from recycled polystyrene were filled and offered to volunteers in an Ineos canteen to evaluate the innovation.
Ineos Styrolution says that 90% of the testers indicated they would buy the product and shared feedback that a recycled cup could look different from conventionally produced ones. For example, a color other than today’s plain white would be “completely acceptable.”
