INNOVATION | PACKAGING
Right: The DeconWaste project led by Aimplas is focused on improving the recycling of plastic packaging and enabling its safe reuse in food contact applications
recycling rigid polyolefin packaging is contamination from packaging elements. This description doesn’t just apply to labels (see below), but can be extended to inks, adhesives, binders, and pigments. These components, while functional and regarded as “safe” during the packaging’s initial life, may release degradation products during the recycling process that compromise quality and safety. Enter SafeCycle, a European initiative coordinated by partners including Fraunhofer IVV, OFI, and FH Campus Wien. The project has won widespread praise for using modified Ames tests to assess mutagenicity in recycled plastics, revealing that certain input streams can form decomposition products during extrusion that trigger mutagenic responses. One major offender was found to be nitrocellulose binders, which are often used in ink systems.
Decontamination The findings led Nextloop, the multi-stakeholder project spearheaded by Nextek, to develop a decontamination process that removes volatile and semi-volatile substances during melt process- ing and in solid state. The resulting PPristine resins, derived from post-consumer PP, have passed the modified Ames test multiple times, indicating no mutagenic risk. Complementing this, Nextek’s COtooCLEAN technology uses supercritical CO2 to extract contaminants with exceptional efficiency, offering a scalable route for high-purity recycling, it said.
In the wide-ranging Nextloop project on PP
packaging, HydroDyn has developed advanced cleaning technology capable of removing up to 99.9% of inks, adhesives, and labels using its HydroCleaner and HydroSeparator systems, Sorema has perfected an effective de-inking wash process for rigid PP flake and PP films, and Siegwerk has made huge strides in de-inking direct-printed PP cups. In trials adhering to DIN SPEC 91496, the inks were fully removed in hot caustic wash conditions, yielding ΔE colour differences between 0.5 and 1.5, considered well within acceptable limits. Project partners say these advancements reinforce the need to align DfR principles with actual recycling processes and contamination challenges. It is no longer enough to ensure that inks and adhesives are safe in primary use; they must also be removable and inert during recycling, and participants in Nextloop are already working to meet these criteria. Bostik, for example, has developed next-generation wash-off adhesives for PP, HDPE, and PET labels, and MCC Verstraete’s NextCycle IML technology enables in-mould labels to detach during size reduction and be removed by air classification.
14 PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD | September 2025
“The sector needs clear, public data on how
residual pigments and ink degradation products affect food-contact safety post-recycling,” said Prof Edward Kosior, founder and CEO at Nextek. “Confidence in recycled plastics including PP hinges on transparency, consistent testing proto- cols, and validation at every step. If converters and brands are to commit to using recycled content, they must be assured that it meets all safety criteria. To close the loop on food-contact PP, we need collaborative innovation across the supply chain. Technologies like PPristine and COtooCLEAN show that food-grade recycled PP and polyolefins are technically achievable. But without upstream alignment, from ink manufacturers to packaging designers, these innovations will remain under- utilised.”
Aimplas in Spain is leading the DeconWaste
research project, which focuses on improving the recycling of plastic packaging and enabling its reuse in food contact applications. Funded by the Valencian Institute for Competitiveness and Innovation (IVACE+i) through the 2024 call for Strategic Cooperation Projects and by the Euro- pean Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the project aims to research and develop new methods for cleaning and decontaminating recycled polyolefins. “Their wide range of uses, the presence of multiple additives, and their chemical behaviour, make decontamination processes more complex,” explained Adrián Morales, lead researcher in Mechanical Recycling at Aimplas. Additionally, the difficulty in distinguishing between food and non-food packaging and tracing its origin compli- cates subsequent processing stages. The project involves collaboration with companies and organi- sations which are committed to furthering sustain- ability and actively participating in validating the technologies.
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www.plasticsrecyclingworld.com
IMAGE: AIMPLAS
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