Food manufacturer Mars said it would incorporate recycled polypropylene plastic into the primary packaging for some of its popular pet food brands.
The company said it was an important step in its efforts to reduce virgin plastics use across its packaging portfolio.
Through its partnership with global packaging supplier Huhtamaki and petrochemical leader Sabic, Mars will use recycled plastic which has been manufactured using an advanced recycling process for its pet food packs.
Thanks to this process, the packs will not feel or be different from those made with traditional virgin plastic but will have the added benefits that they include recycled material coming from previously used plastic products.
The recycling approach used by Sabic to make its certified circular polypropylene is one of the only solutions currently available that is able to take mixed, used plastic that is otherwise hard-to-recycle via traditional recycling routes, and to transform them back into plastic suitable for new food-grade recycled packaging.
Mars is piloting this in Europe in 2020 and will increase volumes used into 2021, with ambitions to expand the use of recycled content to other brands.
Mars chief sustainability and procurement officer Barry Parkin said plastic packaging littering the land and oceans is not acceptable, and Mars is working to address the problem.
“To do this, we need to reduce packaging we don’t need, redesign the remaining packaging to become circular and invest to close the loop to help scale up recycling systems,” Parkin said.
“Through our partnership with Huhtamaki and Sabic, we will test-and-learn, progressively scale up recycled plastic content in our packs, and ultimately help drive circular packaging systems.”
The recycled material is certified under the ISCC PLUS (Institute of Sustainability & Carbon Certification) scheme that uses a “mass balance” approach. This widely recognised international sustainability certification scheme verifies the quality and authenticity of the recycled material along the supply chain from feedstock to final product.
Huhtamaki president and CEO Charles Héaulmé said the company is committed to playing its part in building a circular economy across the value chain and partnering with others to do so.
“Our strategic partnership with Mars and Sabic is a great example of how collaboration can result in breakthroughs that deliver significant progress in our journey to designing 100 per cent of our products to be recyclable, compostable or reusable by 2030,” Héaulmé said.
“This new flexible packaging structure with recycled food-grade plastic is an important milestone on our journey towards achieving more than 80 per cent of raw materials we use to be either renewable or recycled.”
Sabic global circular economy leader Mark Vester said the collaboration with Mars and Huhtamaki reflects Sabic’s trust and willingness for innovation and shared constructive and pioneering spirit.
“At Sabic, we are committed to developing new solutions to meet our customers’ demands for increasingly sustainable solutions,” he said.
“Only through partnerships such as this can we prove the commercial viability and sustainability contribution of advanced recycling processes to help confront the challenges our society is facing today.”
