- In the first phase, the project will process up to 6,000 tons of flexible plastic packaging in year one.
- Nestlé Mexico is the first consumer goods company in the country to back the circular economy by guaranteeingaccess to recycled food-grade plastics.
- Nestlé Mexico announced the signing of an agreement, the first outside Europe, with the UK company, GreenbackRecycling Technologies, to install a chemical recycling plant capable of processing flexible plastic packaging. This willaddress the challenge of post-consumer plastic waste that is difficult to recycle in the country, thus contributing to promoting a circular economy.
The plant will employ an innovative microwave-induced pyrolysis technology (developed by Enval, a UK chemicalrecycling company) to transform valueless plastic packaging into pyrolysis oil that can be used in the petrochemicalindustry to manufacture new products with post-consumer recycled content. Enval’s technology is unique in that it alsoallows the recycling of aluminum from ultra-effective but hitherto impossible-to-recycle packaging.
The ambitious project will enable circularity of up to 6,000 tons of flexible plastic packaging in the first year, withexpected sustained growth in both volume and installed capacity in the country. In addition, Nestlé will be investing inthe adaptation to the Mexican waste ecosystem and market of Greenback’s eco2Veritas Circularity Platform, whichprovides complete traceability of the neutralisation and recycling process.
“Making safe recycled plastics for food packaging is a huge challenge for our industry. Therefore, in addition tominimising the use of plastics and collecting waste, we want to close the loop and make more plastics infinitelyrecyclable. This project with Greenback and Enval fully supports the mission of ensuring that our plastic packaging isnot only recyclable, but actually recycled; it ensures that we are drastically reducing plastic waste pollution andsupports our work with local communities,” commented Fausto Costa, CEO at Nestlé Mexico.
The Swiss company’s alliance with the advanced recycling technology companies (focused on certified circularsolutions for packaging waste) is part of the objective of reducing its plastic footprint in the environment andcontinuing the path towards the goal of achieving a waste-free future.
Philippe von Stauffenberg, founder and CEO of Greenback, said: “This project in Mexico will tackle the unresolvedproblem of turning multi-laminate and mixed plastics that are difficult to recycle into a recyclable waste stream. Theaim is to reduce the challenges that exist in packaging recycling, transforming these waste resources into pyrolysis oilthat can be used for the manufacture of certified recycled food-grade packaging.”
Carlos Ludlow, founder and CEO of Enval commented: “This project with Nestle Mexico and Greenback shows the importance of teamwork between companies from different parts of the value chain to face the challenge of plastics in the environment. At Enval, we know that plastics are not the enemy but are materials that improve our lives but must not end up as pollution. We are very pleased to know that our first plant, in collaboration with a company as recognized as Nestle and in partnership with Greenback, will soon be operational in Mexico.”
In April 2021, Nestlé Mexico became the first company in the country to neutralise all the equivalent plastic from itspost-consumer waste, on a voluntary basis. With this new agreement, the world’s leading company in Nutrition, Healthand Wellness endorses its commitment to make use of innovation and technology to move from virgin plastic torecycled food-grade plastic, in line with the vision of finding effective solutions to prevent its packaging from endingup in landfills or as garbage.
Source
Greenback Earth, press release, 2021-09-29.
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