Recoup, a charity that aims to support plastics recycling, has recently worked with plant pot maker Aeroplas to showcase the possibilities for including this item in household recyclables collections.
Aeroplas has long believed that its own plant pot range should be included with kerbside collections. While 76% of local authorities collect pots, tubs and trays, there are only a handful who collect plant pots.
To help move this forward, Aeroplas has worked with raw material suppliers to provide a range of colours which do not use carbon black pigment – a bugbear of recycling systems based on infra-red light, since the pigment absorbs IR.
Aeroplas provided the plastic recycling charity with samples of plant pots manufactured from 100% reprocessed carbon free PP, for testing on NIR detection systems.
Tests were arranged at the high tech TOMRA testing centre in December 2017. The tests used samples featuring eight different colours, including a carbon-free black. The samples were 100% correctly identified as polypropylene.
Recoup CEO Stuart Foster commented: “This is a valuable fraction of plastics and I see no reason why it shouldn’t be included in household recyclables collections subject to meeting usual good practice collection requirements, namely being clean and empty.”
Aeroplas Sales Manager Alex Everett said: “We have been working very hard to find materials which will allow us to offer packaging in a closed loop system of recycling, pots which would normally end up in landfill can now be successfully sorted and recycled”.
WRAP’s Plastic Specialist Bernard Chase said: “Designing plastic packaging in a way that enables it to be easily collected in the household, easily sorted by polymer type and easily recycled into new products at end of life, is a fundamental principle of a truly circular approach to resource efficiency. WRAP is therefore delighted to be working in collaboration with Recoup and Aeroplas to achieve such a highly desirable outcome for plastic plant pots.”
