Once its plastic refinery plant starts up in summer this year, environmental management specialist Ekokem (Riihimäki / Finland; www.ekokem.com) will begin supplying flexible packaging solutions provider Amerplast (Tampere / Finland; www.amerplast.com) with its “Circo” regrind, which the latter will use to manufacture plastic bags and other flexible packaging. The arrangement follows the set-up earlier this year of a plastics recycling scheme in Finland, where plastics waste was previously incinerated (for details, see Plasteurope.com of 21.01.2016).

“For us, this agreement is a significant step in implementing our ‘Towards a Circular Economy’ strategy,” said Mari Puoskari, senior vice president of New Business Ventures at Ekokem. “Plastic waste produced by households can at last be used in consumer products,” he added. Amerplast COO Reima Kerttula added that the company has already partnered with suppliers, retailers and the public sector to introduce its “AmerGreen” sustainable packaging solutions concept. Using Ekokem’s recyclate, Amerplast will produce carrier bags with a regrind content of more than 95%, the company said.

Amerplast purports to be one of Europe’s largest flexo printers and bag converters, specialising in flexible packaging for consumer goods. The company in 2015 embarked on a strategy of becoming a “leading European packaging company", and last year entered into distribution agreements with PerfoTec (Mijdrecht / The Netherlands; www.perfotec.com) and Braskem (São Paulo / Brazil; www.braskem.com.br) – see Plasteurope.com of 10.02.2015 and of 19.03.2015. Amerplast operates production plants in Finland and Poland, and has sales offices in Sweden and Russia. Its total workforce comes to about 400, and its products are sold in more than 20 countries.