Nextek CEO and founder: Addressing decontamination is a key step toward food pack circularity

Industrial recycling of post-consumer polyolefin films lacks a decontamination process that allows food-grade compliance, says Edward Kosior, CEO and founder at Nextek. We discuss the challenges of flexible plastic recycling and how the company’s COtooClean mechanical recycling technology can solve this issue with Kosior.

“In the UK, only 6% of this flexible plastic gets recycled. In the US, the rate is similarly low. Currently, there are no practical methods for decontaminating flexible plastic for commercial recycling for food-grade uses,” Kosior tells Packaging Insights.

“COtooClean is a waterless, non-toxic process that uses CO2 in the supercritical fluid state and green co-solvents to decontaminate post-consumer film back into food-grade film. This is achieved by a process of extracting the more volatile and mobile molecules in the polyolefin films.”

Nextek’s mechanical recycling technology recently won the “Circular Solutions for Flexibles” award from the Alliance to End Plastic Waste. Kosior says that since receiving the award, the company has moved from prototype development to food-grade compliance trials. 

To showcase the COtooClean technology at an industrial scale, Nextek recently partnered with Coveris to develop a “demonstration plant” in the UK.

The COtooClen process aligns with the objectives of newly introduced legislation, such as the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), “by enabling the recycling of flexible polyolefin films back into food-contact materials,” according to Kosior.

Assisting regulatory compliance 

COtooClean enables organizations to reach recycled content targets for packaging, according to Kosior.Recycling polyolefin films into food-grade materials through the COtooClean process has implications for the EU’s PPWR legislation.

“COtooClean enables organizations to reach recycled content targets and promotes a circular economy for packaging materials,” says Kosior. 

He adds that COtooClean’s “environmentally friendly approach” avoids water usage and minimizes GHG emissions. “This complements the PPWR’s emphasis on sustainable packaging solutions.” 

“By facilitating the production of high-quality recycled PP films suitable for food-contact applications, the COtooClean process addresses regulatory requirements and contributes to reducing reliance on virgin plastics, thereby supporting the EU’s broader sustainability goals.” 

The COtooClean technology 

The COtooClean process not only decontaminates but also sterelizes the recycled polymers, explains Kosior. “With suitable choices of green co-solvents, it can de-ink, de-laminate, and de-metalize multi-film layers depending on the film structure.”

“This innovative cleaning process enables CO2 savings of approximately 1.3 tons of CO2 per ton of recyclate produced compared to virgin resin production.”

Kosior says that COtooClean can produce “high-quality” recycled PP film for food-contact applications.Kosior explains that this makes COtooClean stand out from existing recycling technologies for flexible films. 

Discussing how the current industrial recycling of post-consumer polyolefin films, he says that these are “restricted by the absence of a high-performance decontamination process that allows food-grade compliance for the recycled material, this typically means films can only be recycled for non-food uses.” 

“New technologies are coming forward, such as Solvolysis, but these are much more energy intensive and have a higher capex. This is why the supercritical CO2 process was invented,” he continues. 

“By creating circularity within food-grade films, the COtooClean process is poised to create a high-value destination market for the recycling businesses, meet brand owners demands for food-grade recycled content, reduce demand for virgin resin, improve recycling rates of flexible films and reduce waste going to landfill.”

Alongside Coveris, Nextek’s ultimate goal is to make COtooClean available globally to help address the issue of polymer contamination.