Most Read Stories of 2023 - Number 4: Recycling technology for plastic film wins IOM3 Circular Economy Award

A pioneering recycling technology which promises the ability to recycle post-consumer plastic film has been recognised for its potential to increase the circularity of food packaging.

Plastic recycling consultancy Nextek has been awarded the IOM3’s Circular Economy Award for COtooCLEAN, a supercritical carbon dioxide (ScCO₂) cleaning process that cleans and decontaminates post-consumer polyolefin films to food-grade status.

Recycling plastic film is notoriously difficult to achieve. There is huge demand from consumers and brand owners for a technology which can be scaled to decontaminate post-consumer polyolefin films (LDPE, LLDPE, HDPE, PP) back into food-grade material.

The process was recognised among other innovations, with the criteria for the award calling for technologies that enable progress towards net zero.

Increasing the circularity of food-grade films, COtooCLEAN uses ScCO₂, a non-toxic, non-flammable and non-corrosive solvent that selectively removes contaminants through the use of co-solvents.

The process removes oils, inks, adhesives, labels and chemical contamination from post-consumer polyolefin films, while recycling the non-toxic solvent and separating the residues.

Partners for the COtooCLEAN project include:

• Viridor Ltd a recycling, resource and waste management company, which will be the collector and recycler of films and potential plant builder for the scale up. 
• Consumer goods giants Unilever, which will support the project with testing and analysis to validate the resulting materials for consumer goods packaging applications.
• Allied Bakeries, one of the UK's biggest bread makers, selling 1.6 billion loaves in the UK each year and 90% of these are packed in polyethylene. The firm will evaluate the resulting recycled material with the involvement of their packaging manufacturer and will supply films for de-inking and test recycled films for food-grade status. 
• Packaging producer Amcor, which is focused on making packaging that is increasingly light-weighted, recyclable and reusable, and made using an increasing amount of recycled content.
• University of Nottingham, School of Chemistry (Professor Steve Howdle) will conduct the majority of the optimisation research in the early work packages which will lead to scale up.
• The Biocomposites Centre (BC) at Bangor University, which has invested in pilot-scale CO₂ equipment, will focus on LCA and process optimisation.
• Suprex, a joint venture between Phytovation Ltd and Bangor University, which specialises in the development of applications of supercritical CO₂, will take a lead in equipment design and safe operation and construction and assist in large scale trials of the post-consumer films.