To close the loop in the circular economy and ensure plastic packaging is recycled, it’s important that retailers, brand owners, packaging manufacturers and designers incorporate recyclability principles into their pack design processes.
Packaging should be designed to consumer and customer needs while still minimising their environmental impact, using minimum resources and ensuring they don’t end in landfill.
‘Although we’ve come a long way, in some instances, we’ve gone backwards,’ explained Chandru. He added that single-use plastic products have become the poster child of everything that’s bad in the environment. ‘A lot of the narrative, especially in mainstream media, can be toxic and divisive to the extent that alternative choices made actually do more environmental harm than good.’
According to Chandru, legislation in 2009 already referred to EPR and centred around plastic bags which were declared as nuisance items. ‘I’m grateful, and brand owners should be aware, there is legislation where appeals can be made to the government to declare certain products as complete nuisance.’
Highlighting challenges, he explained pigments remain a challenge as are fillers though many have been phased out. ‘Coloured plastic material remains a challenge via green and brown bottles. We look forward to seeing changes, especially if we aspire to meet EPR targets for rPET inclusion which goes up to 12% in 2023 for all beverage PET bottles. Currently, there is a feeding frenzy for clear bottles globally, which means recycling rates for these bottles will easily cross 60% to 70%. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for coloured bottles that continue to come into our factories with landfill sometimes as their end destination.’
He added that there’s been a marked increase in the use of metal caps with PET bottles. ‘Certain liquor and wine products seem to have moved away from glass to PET. Not only do these products challenge recyclability by using heavy pigments in the bottle, they also use metal closures, making the bottle “non-recyclable”. These metal caps are also endangering the machinery run at recycling plants, resulting in reduced throughputs and increased costs, which ultimately will manifest into the cost of recycled polymers.’
PVC and PET shrink sleeves are also causing trouble at recycling plants, claimed Chandru. ‘We encourage collectors not to pick up bottles with these shrink sleeves, which means nine out of 10 bottles in this bracket are destined for landfill. Those that come into the facility have to be manually removed and while the bottle is then recycled, the label will end up in landfill. Even manoeuvres to make the labels more detachable or easier to detach don’t negate the fact that there are no local recycling solutions for PVC or PET shrink sleeves. Government targets as per section 18 won’t be met, which ultimately means it’s not legally compatible with the legislation.’
Trials have been conducted with Extrupet and multiple suppliers on floatable shrink sleeves. ‘We’re still looking at making it easier to identify once launched so we can distinguish them from non-compliant shrink sleeves. But this change will have to come from brand owners, without which it’s going to be very difficult to get these bottles recycled,’ he noted.
There’s also a lot of debate about biodegradable and compostable materials and Chandru warned companies against opting for them without diligent research. ‘Already back in 2013, those who wanted to label packaging as compostable, biodegradable or degradable had to clearly mark it as non-recyclable in certain overseas markets. What we’re starting to see globally is requests for more lifecycle analysis and data to back the claims everyone’s happy to make on their packaging.’
Another debate is if 100% rPET is truly sustainable. ‘Although we have the capabilities in South Africa, the notion that everything is going to be made from 100% recycled plastic means we need to collect everything out there which is very difficult and doesn’t compensate for the wastage that happens in the process. Ultimately, an achievable target is to have every PET bottle made from approximately 50% rPET.’
He pointed out that there’s a global growing demand for food-grade rPET because it’s the only polymer that’s demonstrated that it can be circular. By the end of 2023 or early 2024, Extrupet hopes to be adding more capacity to ensure local offtake for food-grade rPET is made locally as opposed to imports.
Chandru warned that printing on PET means that it’s highly unlikely to be collected, which condemns it to landfill. ‘The ink purges when you melt it and bleeds into the recyclate.’
He pointed out that opaque PET is a regression and is designed to fail as it’s unrecyclable in Africa. ‘There’s an explosion of opaque PET coming into the dairy market, but it’s so difficult to recycle that even fibre can’t be made from it. We’re starting to penalise suppliers who bring this to our plants, which means it won’t be collected for recycling and what leaks into our plants has to be granulated and then discarded back to landfill.’
Chandru advised brand owners and their converting partners to be mindful of how they produce products and draw resources. ‘Plastic has the lowest carbon footprint and if you want to go to substitutes of other packaging mediums because you think they are more recyclable first study them carefully and do the necessary analysis, so that you can demonstrate to consumers and the authorities that the packaging you’re putting out is truly sustainable otherwise it’s just greenwashing.’
