Packaging specialist Faerch (Holstebro / Denmark; www.faerch.com) is claiming a world first: after its partnership with UK supermarket giant Tesco (Welwyn Garden City; www.tesco.com), the Danish company has developed a closed-loop recycling system that will see its back-of-store rigid trays collected, recycled and turned back into primary food-contact trays or pots.

Tesco plans to divert 2,000 t of retail-ready packaging tray waste back into food packaging applications, using a polymer-sorting facility operated by Eurokey (Leicester / UK; www.eurokeyrecycling.com), and Faerch’s tray recycling plant in the Netherlands.

With demand for bottle flake expected to rise in the wake of UK’s packaging tax (see Plasteurope.com of 12.11.2021), and with collection rates of plastic pots, tubs and tray versus PET bottles – used in making recycled trays – still relatively poor, Faerch said it had the only technology globally that can undertake tray-to-tray recycling and manufacturing.

The collaboration with Tesco ensures that high quality food-grade PET is kept within the primary and secondary food packaging supply chain, while reducing the dependency on bottle flake, the company added.