Post by Wageningen Food & Biobased Research

♻️🍬 Most foods - such as candy, butter and bread - are currently packaged in polyethylene (PE) or polypropylene (PP). By 2030 this packaging will need to contain 10% recycled material, to comply with the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation. At the moment not a single recycler has formal approval to place food-safe PP or PE recycled material on the European market. The challenges are substantial. What is clear is that successful processing into food-safe recycled materials starts with good packaging design. Today, on Global Recycling Day, we’d like to share insights from our experts EU (Ulphard) Thoden van Velzen and Ingeborg Smeding-Zuurendonk. 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗳𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝘀 A number of food companies are planning to switch to polyethylene terephthalate (PET), for which food-safe recycled material is already available. Other companies are participating in research projects to clean plastic waste using new decontamination technologies. Unfortunately, most companies are still waiting, while a proactive approach to preparing their packaging for food-safe (mechanical) recycling would make far more sense. Only when sufficient suitable, well-designed packaging are placed on the market, it will become attractive for recyclers to invest in recycling processes capable of producing food-safe recycled material. 𝗡𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 In order to place food-safe PE or PP recycled material on the European market, a novel technology application has to be submitted to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). EFSA generally takes a conservative and risk-averse approach. In Vakblad Voedingsindustrie - Dutch food industry, Ulphard and Ingeborg dive deeper into: 1️⃣ 𝗦𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀 to separate well-designed food packaging as we expect EFSA to use a very high level of object purity in the raw material as an assessment criterion 2️⃣ 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 during the recycling process, as this is a source of chemicals and substances of concern 3️⃣ 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀: how to remove substances absorbed into the plastic; either from the packaging itself or from other packaging Read the article: https://lnkd.in/e7tsFbWn   Our research with several packaging manufacturers already shows that very promising opportunities exist. The first well-designed examples are already on the market: PE milk jugs are a good example. Who will follow? #Recycling #FoodPackaging #Plastics