Feasibility of incorporating recycled polystyren

The use of cer­ti­fied, chem­i­cal­ly recy­cled poly­styrene in yogurt cups has been made pos­si­ble by the com­pa­nies Total, Intraplás and Yoplait. This is the first step of a col­lab­o­ra­tive ini­tia­tive aim­ing at test­ing the use of chem­i­cal­ly recy­cled poly­styrene in yogurt pots, sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment of sus­tain­able PS recy­cling in France.
This test is an impor­tant achieve­ment in estab­lish­ing chem­i­cal recy­cling as a valid route for poly­styrene recy­cling in France.
The com­pa­ny is lever­ag­ing its indus­tri­al exper­tise to process feed­stock derived from post-con­sumer mixed plas­tic waste which is oth­er­wise hard to recy­cle via exist­ing recy­cling chan­nels. By con­vert­ing this sec­ondary raw mate­r­i­al in its steam crack­er in Antwerp, cov­ered by ISCC Plus cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, Total is able to pro­duce cer­ti­fied chem­i­cal­ly recy­cled poly­styrene. The pro­duced cer­ti­fied cir­cu­lar rPS has the ben­e­fits of exhibit­ing vir­gin-like per­for­mance, thus enabling its incor­po­ra­tion in high-end appli­ca­tions, includ­ing food-grade pack­ag­ing. This was demon­strat­ed by Intraplás, that suc­cess­ful­ly trans­formed Total’s cer­ti­fied cir­cu­lar rPS into dairy sheets, and final­ly, by Yoplait, in yogurt pots. This is an impor­tant achieve­ment in estab­lish­ing chem­i­cal recy­cling as a valid route for poly­styrene recy­cling and close the loop in dairy applications.

“This project is a great illus­tra­tion of inno­va­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion with Intraplás and Yoplait, which demon­strates our com­mon com­mit­ment to make poly­styrene cir­cu­lar for food-grade pack­ag­ing. This marks a fur­ther mile­stone in address­ing the chal­lenge of the cir­cu­lar econ­o­my and achiev­ing the con­cern’s ambi­tion of pro­duc­ing 30% recy­cled poly­mers by 2030.”
— Valérie Goff, Senior Vice President

This fol­lows the announce­ment that the com­pa­ny will be con­struct­ing France’s first chem­i­cal recy­cling plant on its future zero-crude plat­form in Grand­puits with Plas­tic Energy.
“We under­stand inno­va­tion as a strate­gic fac­tor for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and involve­ment of the par­ties. In this way, we are very proud and sat­is­fied for hav­ing man­aged to join the val­ue chain of the food sec­tor, in this spe­cif­ic project, which pro­motes the cir­cu­lar econ­o­my of poly­styrene food pack­ag­ing, guar­an­tee­ing the total safe­ty of con­sumers,“ said Anabela Fer­reira, co-own­er and exec­u­tive mem­ber of Intraplás.

“We are glad to sup­port this col­lec­tive ini­tia­tive as it demon­strates our abil­i­ty to use cer­ti­fied cir­cu­lar rPS to pro­duce yogurt pots. It is an impor­tant mile­stone in our jour­ney to engage the val­ue chain in cre­at­ing a cir­cu­lar econ­o­my for poly­styrene in France, and for our roadmap tar­get­ing 100% recy­clable or reusable pack­ag­ing by 2025.”
— Frédéric Cha­puis, Sus­tain­able Pack­ag­ing Strat­e­gy Man­ag­er at Yoplait