Sealed Air has collaborated with the APR Plastics team to successfully trial advanced recycling for the processing of its new Cryovac barrier shrink bag – R90, a sustainable retail packaging solution for fresh chilled meats.
The trial was conducted at the APR Plastics Dandenong south facility, on its Biofabrik WASTX pilot plant, which uses pyrolysis in this advanced recycling process to convert plastic to recycled oil.
APR Plastics worked with Sealed Air to trial the new multi-layered flexible plastic material used to make the food-grade R90 barrier plastic packaging.
“With more than 90 per cent polyethylene content, R90 is retail meat shrink packaging that is purposefully designed for recycling, meeting APCO 2023 design guidelines,” Alan Adams, Sealed Air director of sustainability APAC, told PKN.
“This trial, the first of its kind in Australia, brings together new recycling technology and new materials development to highlight the path to circularity in advanced meat packaging,” Adams said.
“Demonstrating that these advanced materials process through in real world equipment gives us great confidence we are on the right path,” Adams said.
Logan Thorpe, advanced pyrolysis executive at APR, told PKN, “The results were significant in that we were able to prove the processibility of this product through advanced recycling and give validation to the sustainability of this material through advanced recycling.”
Thorpe said the next steps will be to commercialise this solution by recovering this material from the marketplace and convert it through advanced recycling back into new plastics – closing the loop on this material for a circular plastic.
