Greenback, Amcor commission first UK chemical recycling plant

Amcor has launched Greenback Recycling Technologies’ Enval advanced recycling module at its facility in Heanor, Derbyshire, UK.

Source: Packaging-Gateway

This installation represents the inaugural use of Greenback’s recycling technology by a major packaging company in Europe.

Project Overview

The initiative is conducted in collaboration with the Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW) and aims to explore methods for converting post-consumer flexible plastics into materials suitable for food-grade plastic production.

• The recycling process is overseen by the eco2Veritas traceability system.
• This system utilizes AI and internet-connected devices to gather data throughout the entire process, from waste reception to the generation of pyrolytic oil.
• The resulting oil is accompanied by a digital certificate, providing traceability data for mass-balance calculations as it is transformed into recycled plastics.

Selection of Heanor

Heanor was chosen for this project due to its established capabilities in managing and recycling both post-consumer and industrial flexible plastic waste.

• The facility currently employs mechanical recycling to convert waste plastic into polymers for various flexible packaging products produced by Amcor.
• With the addition of the Enval module, the facility will expand its capacity to process a wider array of post-consumer flexible plastics.

Mary Creagh, the UK Nature and Circular Economy Minister, attended the commissioning event.

Ongoing Initiatives

Last month, Amcor committed to a three-year Danish initiative aimed at developing a fully circular recycling system for household food packaging made from plastics. This project, led by the Danish Technological Institute and supported by the Circular Recycling Innovation for Sustainable Packaging (CRISP) programme, focuses on rigid food packaging made from polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).