Industry faces key decisions on plastics recovery

Fateful decisions about the collection and recovery of post-consumer polypropylene (PP) and possibly other polymers are likely over the next few months.

Retailers have publicly championed the more readily collectable polymers, notably polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and high density polyethylene (HDPE), as well as the much-hyped biopolymers. But converters and users of other traditional food packaging polymers want clarification about where this leaves their choice of other materials.

Jeremy Sampson, sales and marketing director at Sharp Interpack, says: "We supply a lot of PP for products such as poultry, partly for reasons of cost and because of the type of pack required. If we used PET, for instance, pack prices would go up. And while PP can be microwaved, other polymers cannot."

Regarding plans to rationalise the range of polymers used, he adds: "At the moment, we are looking for definition from retailers."

According to the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), some 10% of local authorities now collect mixed plastics for recycling. And both Tesco and Sainsbury are expanding their front-of-store owned infrastructure for collecting used packaging.

But James McKechnie, recycling resource manager at Sainsbury, says the problem lies with the relatively unsophisticated sorting processes currently used by the large materials recycling facilities (MRFs) in the UK. "Can this technical issue be overcome? Yes, it can. Is collection of more plastics viable? Now it is," he argues. "We think we could cover all our plastics packaging needs with just PET, HDPE and PP."

WRAP is more circumspect in its assessments. Plastics technical manager Paul Davidson says: "Bottles have come a long way, and the next challenge will be full mixed plastics. This is the question we'll be looking at over the coming year.

"After PET and HDPE, the next most readily recyclable polymers are PP and polystyrene (PS)." Options could include mechanical and feedstock recycling, and energy from waste (EfW). Various mechanical recycling processes are approved for food-contact PET, and WRAP has developed a mechanical process for food-contact HDPE which would also work for PP.