MATERIALS | COLOURS
Developmental rPET flake treatments from Avient may significantly reduce yellowing (b*) and discoloration (L*)
Source: Avient
for this product,” she says. Tests have shown how flake treatments can have a significant effect on cutting colouration in rPET. “There is a huge impact on stabilising colour formation,” says Smith. Treat- ment of compounds can reduce b* values by 15 units (10 vs 25) – b* indicates the level of yellowing. L*, which is a measure of darkness on a scale from 0 (black) to 100 (white), rises from 69 to around 82. Holland Colours offers TintMask for this technol- ogy space. The additive also counteracts the colour deviation associated with recycled PET and turns even lower grade rPET into a viable choice for brands. It is offered in two formats, a liquid and a solid microbead, ensuring it can be applied in any production environment.
With PCR tending to come out of the extruder looking grey, recycling companies, processors and users have two alternatives: they can disguise the grey by adding pigment, or they can embrace it and make grey a positive rather than a negative feature. German rigid packaging producer Jokey has been running a campaign called “Grey is the new green,” for some time, making a virtue out of recyclate’s greyness. Jens Stadter, CEO of Jokey, says that everything being grey was a problem for a long time, but things have changed. “30 years ago, grey packaging still had a boring eco-image attached to it. Today, it is the
Right: Swiss building materials retailer Haga relies on the grey recyclate bucket from Jokey. The buckets used for selling clay plaster contain at least 50% PCR
38 PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD | July/August 2021
other way around: grey packaging stands for the circular economy.” He says: “When recyclate packaging solutions can be found throughout store shelves, it is a clear statement: this is what recyclable packaging looks like! Of course, this must be accompanied by communication: grey is not a deficit, but a clear commitment. Those who value sustainability can easily identify the appropriate packaging at the point of sale thanks to the grey colour and thus consciously make an ecologically motivated purchase decision.” The grey colour alone is not enough for a green
image of course. The PCR content of sustainable packaging must also be verifiable. Quality marks such as the RAL quality mark “% recycled plastic” show how much recyclate the packaging contains and where it comes from, Stadter says. Der Grüne Punkt (The Green Dot), a leading
provider of packaging take-back systems based in Germany, takes a similar view. In March, it reported that producers of plastic packaging in Germany were complaining about their raw material being expen- sive and in short supply. “Plastics manufacturers increasingly deliver their goods to China where the economy is on the rebound and raw materials are in demand, so higher prices are paid,” it said. “That leaves German companies out in the cold – they can scarcely obtain enough supplies and have to put up with much higher costs. Recyclates may constitute an alternative here – but these have so far hardly been used for packaging.” Der Grüne Punkt says this is where a
IMAGE: HAGA
product innovation it developed with W Müller, a German producer of blow mould- ing equipment, fits in. Together, they developed a bottle made of Systalen LDPE, produced from PCR film waste using technology
www.plasticsrecyclingworld.com
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