Eco-resin with 50% rPET matches virgin material - company
The Spain-based company said its Elite product - made up of 10%, 25% or 50% rPET – is a “remarkably pure, energy efficient packaging resin”.
The formulation has been specifically developed for beverage packaging – including still and carbonated water as well as soft drinks.
“We have successfully created a PET packaging material that includes recycled resin in its manufacturing process, but with the same quality as virgin PET,” saidJordi Foguet, company technology manager. “The product development was a rigorous joint effort between R&D, our pilot plant, production sites and our in-house suppliers of recycled PET flakes. We are excited to bring this environmentally-friendly new product line to the market.”
Artenius highlighted the products sustainability profile but also trumpeted its strength and versatility properties. There are nine different references of resins available to meet a variety of food packaging and moulding process needs.
The product is versatile and, depending on the base resin used, is suitable for processing as stretch blow moulding in both one and two-stage processing, said the firm.
The new combined resin is produced under a proprietary chemical recycling process.
“The clean recycled PET is de-polymerised and mixed together with standard virgin PET raw materials, integrating both types of compounds into the re-polymerization process,” a company spokesman told FoodProductionDaily.com.
The LSB subsidiary said that decontamination challenge tests carried out by the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany confirmed its production process results in resins as pure as the 100% virgin material “even under the worst-case contamination scenarios".
This means it is suitable for use in food contact materials and has approval in Europe and the US – in the latter case through a non-objection letter.
“In fact, the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) has ruled that Artenius Elite’s process should not be treated differently from monomers manufactured by chemical synthesis,” said the firm.
This means the resins are covered by rules under authorisation of monomers and additives in Commission Regulation 10/2011 instead of by Regulation (EC) 282/2008 on recycled plastic materials for food contact articles, it added.
“We have nine different references of Artenius Elite resins, depending on the virgin resin base and on the content of recycled PET added during the chemical process,” said Foguet.
The resin is presently produced at the company’s facility in Italy although it confirmed that output would soon begin at its Spanish plant located in El Prat, just outside Barcelona.
