INNOVATION | CAPS AND CLOSURES
material will be 35% lower in CO2 emissions and require 50% less water consumption. Chemical recycling is another route that caps
producers can take with materials. Guala Closures has worked with polyolefins producer SABIC to produce a cap for Ella’s Kitchen, a UK baby food brand. Ella’s Kitchen is the first company in the baby food category to use certified circular polymers from SABIC’s Trucircle portfolio of products that have recycled polymer content from a chemical recycling process. SABIC says this approach enables production of materials for high-quality, food-grade packaging which can then be recycled again many times. Stefano Manfredi, Global Sales and Marketing
Above: Berry Global’s plastics recycling facility in Heanor, UK, has opened a Centre of Excellence
Right: Guala Closures uses chemically recycled material from SABIC to produce a cap for UK baby food brand Ella’s Kitchen
Circular designation is being applied to Berry’s bottles, tubes and closures. It says a wide selection of closures made with PCR is available for packag- ing in the food, beauty and personal care, bever- age and home care industries. Closures are available with up to 100% recycled PP and are available in a variety of colours, says the group. Berry’s plastics recycling facility in Heanor, UK, has opened a Centre of Excellence to further enhance the level of quality evaluation of the recycled material that is used to produce the company’s Sustane recycled polymer. The new laboratory facility, which complements Berry’s exist- ing testing capabilities, analyses the material composition of incoming scrap material, resulting in a higher quality of recyclate for use in the manufacture of second life products. The group’s expansion into recycled materials was confirmed last year by the start of work on a new recycling facility in Leamington Spa, UK, working towards certified FDA recycled PP for use in packaging. “This highly innovative facility will pave the way for the future of rPP packaging using automated sorting process- es, integrating online sensor technologies and machine learning algorithms to separate PP containers, tubs, and trays with high accuracy.” The team at Berry has conduct- ed an initial lifecycle assessment quantifying the benefits of its proposed rPP process over the use of virgin PP. The material produced using its CleanStream recycling process has an 80% lower CO2 footprint than virgin resin. Packag- ing produced from this rPP
26 INJECTION WORLD | April 2022
Director at Guala, says: “We are delighted to be part of this innovative journey together with our customer and supplier as we have the ambition to offer the largest portfolio of sustainable solutions.” In December 2021, Guala said it had received
ISCC Plus certification from Bureau Veritas. This certification covers all closures produced at its Spinetta Marengo site in Italy, according to a mass balance approach, as long as they contain a part manufactured with ISCC Plus certified plastics declared in an audit report.
Injection moulding machinery suppliers are also playing their part in the circularity drive for caps, facilitating the use of recycled content by caps moulders through their innovations. Engel high- lights the benefits of its iQ Weight Control function, which deals with fluctuations in the ambient conditions and raw material that can change the flow properties of the plastic melt during injection and can impact on the quality of the moulded parts. The company says: “As the use of recycled materials grows in the packaging industry, smart process assistance is becoming increasingly important. Recycled materials typically mean greater batch variations than virgin material. Using iQ Weight Control means that recycled materials can be used in a very cost-effective way for demanding packaging products.” To demonstrate iQ Weight
IMAGE: SABIC
Control in high-performance applications, Engel carried out tests using a 380-tonne E-cap injection moulding machine with a 96-cavity mould for 29/25 caps for still water from Plastisud. MB7541 HDPE from Borealis with an MFI of 12 was processed. The part weight
www.injectionworld.com
IMAGE: BERRY GLOBAL
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58
