A new recycling process for PET trays hopes to stop 50 mn such trays going to landfill or being incinerated. Thai PET specialist Indorama Ventures (IVL, Bangkok; www.indoramaventures.com) has been trialling recycling techniques at its Wellman facility in Verdun, France, for the past six years, coordinating its research with French recycling operation Valorplast (Puteaux; www.valorplast.com), with support from French recycling association Citeo (Paris; www.citeo.com).

The project aims to develop and validate recycling for monolayer and multilayer PET trays. Valorplast collects post-consumer PET trays, with Wellman conducting recycling runs to produce flake tested to develop high-quality applications.

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Tests have helped IVL develop a commercially viable recycling solution for monolayer PET trays, following a collaboration with packaging group Klöckner Pentaplast (KP, London; www.kpfilms.com). The new technology is processing monolayer PET trays used for food packaging into a high-quality product, suitable for producing recycled trays for food use.

IVL said 500 t of PET trays per month were now being processed and transformed into a high-quality tray flake – comparable with high-quality bottle flake – to produce new trays. The group plans to increase production to 10,000 t/y later this year. Back in 2020, IVL subsidiary Wellman International (Mullagh, Ireland; www.wellman-intl.com) had announced plans to recycle around 2.4 bn PET bottles at the Verdun site in France (see Plasteurope.com of 12.08.2020).