Sustainable Plastics - May/June 2022 - 18

recycling
APK AG and Huhtamaki
collaboration reaches
new milestone
Just last year, APK AG and Huhtamaki announced that they had, for the first time,
successfully created a tube laminate. Now, the companies have gone even further.
" We have been able to integrate PIR - post-industrial recycled materials - into one
of our standard tube laminates, " said Jakob Settele of Huhtamaki Flexible Packaging
Europe. " It happened at the end of last year. 2021 was really a very successful year
for us. " By Karen Laird.
F
or Huhtamaki Flexible
Packaging Europe, the
development of a tube
laminate incorporating
PIR - recycled material derived
from plastic industrial waste -
represented a big step forward
in the company's aim to produce
a more circular tube laminate.
" It was also very satisfying
to reach the goal we had set
ourselves, " said Jakob Settele,
sales manager at Huhtamaki.
" We received official approvals
from RecyClass for our standard
materials and for our developments:
on the one hand,
our HDPE-based tube laminate
and on the other hand, for the
PIR-LDPE tube laminate. We
are very proud to be able to
prove that we have integrated
recycled content into a recyclable
tube laminate. "
The developments were
made possible by among others,
Huhtamaki's long-standing
collaboration with APK
AG, an advanced recycling
company that has developed a
one-step solvent-based technology
it calls Newcycling to
produce its Mersalen polyethylene
resin.
APK's Newcycling facility in
Merseburg, Germany, valorises
post-industrial multipolymer,
multilayer plastic waste via a
dissolution recycling process
at industrial scale. The plant,
which has been online since
June 2019, has an annual capacity
of 8,000 t/a. The mixed
input material is derived from
multilayer film production waste
(LDPE/PA film production) that
would otherwise be incinerated.
18
May/June 2022
Ece Akalin Tugal
The Newcycling process separates
these into high-purity PA
and LDPE recyclates, both of
which are subsequently sold by
APK.
The tube produced with
Huhtamaki's laminate contains
19% Mersalen recyclate.
The team at Huhtamaki Flexible
Packaging Europe is now
working on a number of further
challenges that remain to
be overcome: increasing the
percentage of recycled content
in their laminates and creating
tube laminates from recycled
material that are suitable for
food applications.
Currently, tube laminates
made with recycled content
may not be used in food-contact
applications. However,
Settele said, APK recently conducted
a risk assessment on
their resins, which showed that
it is suitable for cosmetic applications,
which means that the
tube laminates produced based
on these resins can be used for
cosmetics packaging.
Ece Akalin Tugal, a key acJakob
Settele
count manager at APK, confirmed
as much. She explained
that because of the need for
reliable and accurate information
in the market regarding
whether the recycled materials
are safe and suitable for
the application the customer
is targeting, APK had commissioned
a detailed toxicology
risk evaluation that was conducted
by an independent toxicology
expert.
" Huhtamaki must meet
many different specifications, "
she said. " What we did was to
have an independent third party
evaluate whether Mersalen
was safe for use as flexible
and/or rigid cosmetic packaging
- for use by adults, children
and babies. "
The results showed that
Mersalen could be safely used
in these applications. Moreover,
APK is also operating in
line with the EU's product and
chemical regulations, which
means that it can provide its
customers with a REACH declaration,
as well, she added.
Food-contact
applications not yet
feasible
While the purity of the recyclate
produced via the Newcycling
process is very high,
its use in applications such as
food packaging is still a challenge.
The reason has more to
do with the strict regulations in
place in the EU with regard to
the use of recycled content for
food-contact applications. Currently,
the regulations state that
only food-contact-approved
materials may be recycled into
food-contact recyclate; an input
stream that would be highly limited
and difficult to sort and is
currently not existent. And while
this is a problem for the sorters
to solve, it is also one that affects
the recyclates produced
by APK, said Tugal. " What is
probably needed is a closedloop
system. Although the problem
there is ensuring a steady
and sufficient supply of the particular
type of waste packaging
needed, especially if demand
for the material picks up. "
Huhtamaki has actually
already explored the use of
post-consumer recyclate derived
from just such a closedloop
stream, added Settele. " We
used recyclates from a closed
milk bottle waste stream to
produce tube laminates based
on PCR from food packaging.
It does also not have full food
approval from the European
Union, but the resins used have
a letter of no objection by American
FDA. It was a first step in
Sustainable Plastics - May/June 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sustainable Plastics - May/June 2022
