With 120t a month of black PET now being combined with mixed-colour PET bottle waste to create new recycled food packaging for three retailers, Faerch Plast UK emphasised the need for new recycling initiatives.
Viridor is sorting and combining the different waste types and Faerch Plast is extruding black PET sheet at its Ely plant, with recycled content starting at 30%.
Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Sainsbury’s will be using the new material in their food packaging.
Faerch Plast’s procurement director Trevor Wilkin told Food Manufacture: “Elsewhere in Europe, you have much more segregated collection and recycling of plastics. In the UK, we’ve very much gone down the commingled route.
“The big challenge is that the Packaging Waste Export Recovery Note system, especially, has actively discouraged local recycling, when we really need to encourage it. One of the main things is that we need to design for recycling as we go forward.”
