German industrial and consumer products manufacturer Henkel announced on 17 October that it has produced bottles using chemically recycled plastic for the first time, working in collaboration with packaging manufacturer Alpla. Through chemical recycling, mixed plastic waste that was previously impossible to recycle can be effectively reprocessed and reused. The pilot project with bottles of Perwoll – a clothing detergent – is part of the ChemCycling project led by BASF.
“We see huge potential for chemical recycling to complement conventional mechanical recycling,” said Dr. Thorsten Leopold, Head of International Packaging Development Home Care at Henkel. “Mechanical recycling is limited by the fact that not all plastic waste can be reprocessed into useable material. Thanks to chemical recycling, fossil resources can be replaced with recycled material made from plastic waste. This project is an important additional step towards creating a circular economy for plastic – on this basis we are evaluating further opportunities for integrating chemically recycled plastic in our product packaging.”
“The pilot project with Henkel’s Perwoll bottle has shown that products made using chemically recycled raw materials boast the same high quality and performance as products made of fossil materials. With ChemCycling, the proportion of recycled material that goes into the production process is assigned to the end product by the Mass Balance method. This can help our customers achieve their sustainability goals,” said Anja Winkler, BASF Head of Global Key Account Management Henkel Home & Personal Care.
“Through chemical recycling the resource plastic can be durably retained within the material cycle – the carbon it contains can thereby be reused. This is how chemical recycling could complement established technologies like mechanical recycling. The quality of the materials tested has convinced us,” said Nicolas Lehner, Chief Commercial Officer for Alpla.
Chemical recycling as a useful complement to the mechanical approach
Mechanical recycling involves crushing, cleaning and reprocessing separated plastic waste back into granulate form. The challenge inherent to this method is that the quality of the resulting recycled product can only be as good as that of the “input material”. Impure plastic, as well as colour and a mix of materials can negatively impact the quality of the recycled product and make the recycling process more difficult. In addition, plastic cannot be reprocessed endlessly through mechanical recycling. Chemical recycling allows plastic waste that can’t be recycled mechanically to be reintroduced into the material cycle. ChemCycling uses thermo-chemical processes to transform plastic waste into pyrolysis oil. This secondary raw material then serves as feedstock for the chemical industry to produce plastic for various purposes, such as packaging. The packaging produced using these chemically recycled materials is of the same quality as packaging made of new plastic. This allows fossil resources to be saved and waste to be reduced.
The collaboration with BASF and Alpla on the ChemCycling project is presented as another example of Henkel’s declared commitment to sustainable packaging. The company says it has already reached various milestones in the implementation of its packaging strategy, and that many of its product packages today are made of 100 percent recycled plastic.
