A group of three firms interested in developing new ways to recycle plastics waste has received a grant of GBP 3.1m (EUR 3.4m) for research into technologies that will turn post-consumer use material into virgin-quality feedstock. The grant from UK Research and Innovation (Manchester; www.ukri.org), will support a three-year collaboration, which will see Recycling Technologies (Swindon / UK; www.recyclingtechnologies.co.uk) process plastics waste into an oil product called “Plaxx”. Finnish refiner Neste (Espoo; www.neste.com) will then test the oil to see if it can be turned it into high-quality, drop-in feedstock, while Unilever (London / UK; www.unilever.co.uk) will consult on design for recycling for packaging.

Sebastian Munden, executive vice-president, Unilever UK & Ireland, said, “As part of the collaboration, Unilever has committed to looking at the design of its products for greater recyclability, as well as the possibility to use the recycled material back in our product packaging, which would create the end-market and value for the materials.”

Earlier this year, Recycling Technologies teamed with Ineos Styrolution (Frankfurt / Germany; www.ineos-styrolution.com) to look at recycling polystyrene in Europe, with a view to make the resulting material suitable for food packaging (see Plasteurope.com of 13.08.2020).