Veolia launches global PlastiLoop brand to boost recycling rates and improve transparency
25 Oct 2022 --- Veolia has launched a new brand of recycled plastics and services under the name PlastiLoop. Announced at the K 2022 fair in Dusseldorf, Germany, the brand is designed to cater to varying sectors globally and brings together a wide pool of industry experts and recycling facilities.
PlastiLoop will utilize Veolia’s 37 plastic recycling plants in 14 countries worldwide. It aims to provide customers with a variety of ready-to-use recycled resins: PET, PP, HDPE, polystyrene, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, LDPE and polycarbonate.
Benoît Perreau, markets and clients director for solid waste at Veolia, tells PackagingInsights that the project will improve material adaptation according to customer needs, hasten greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction, and improve traceability and transparency throughout the supply chain.
The resins of offer can be fed into production lines in multiple industrial sectors, including packaging, textiles, agriculture, home and appliances, automotive, industrial and logistics, building and construction.
Veolia faced difficulty in creating the brand, says Perreau. “The challenges were to compile the variety of our offer and experiences in a structured approach, clear and easily accessible for our customers.”
PlastiLoop will provide a range of plastic material types according to customer needs worldwide.“This required of course a global internal alignment on our promise, both ambitious and pragmatic, but also to respect and build on the added value of each team to catch the best of each plant and experts.”
Choosing recycling
PlastiLoop will create 610,000 tons of circular polymers annually with 1,000 plastic recycling employees. Currently, the brand caters to over 300 industry clients.
Estelle Brachlianoff, chief executive officer of Veolia, comments: “The new PlastiLoop offer brings together all our technical and commercial expertise in recycled plastics to provide our customers with the best possible support with customized solutions.”
“It offers the strength of the Group, through its experts and its various recycling plants, to ensure the best access to recycled plastic deposits,” she says.
“Choosing recycled plastic not only saves resources but also achieves a considerable reduction in CO2 emissions, up to 75% less than virgin plastic. As a global champion of ecological transformation, through this offer, Veolia is creating more outlets for recycled material and promoting the structuring of this sector worldwide.”
Veolia’s political call
Veolia also says that political change is crucial to help its efforts in circularizing the plastics economy.
Governments must “push for ‘design-to-recycle’ of products – Veolia also offers eco-design expertise and certification on packaging,” says Perreau.
Moreover, he asserts policymakers must promote extended producer responsibility and collection schemes to increase the generation of available and qualitative plastic feedstocks.
“Set incentives to the use of circular polymers, such as recycled content over all industries, of taxes on non recycled plastics,” he continues.
Veolia also supports the implementation of a carbon tax, which it says should be a “valuable driver as circular polymers (especially through mechanical recycling processes) highly reduce GHG emissions and resource depletion compared to virgin polymers.”
Perreau also says governments need to be careful in regard to the credibility of allegations of recycled content claims made by many companies. “These have to be a true reality reflecting the material yield of each process,” he concludes.
By Louis Gore-Langton
