10 NEWS PETplanet Insider Vol. 22 No. 12/21 www.petpla.net Investment in Australia’s Plastic Recycling and Sustainable Packaging Industry Pact Group has received AUD 20 million in funding from the Federal Government’s Modern Manufacturing Initiative for Recycling and Clean Energy Manufacturing projects to support its investments in technology to increase the amount of recycled materials in locally made plastic packaging. The funding will support investment of approximately AUD 76 million in new equipment and facility upgrades at 15 of Pact’s operations in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia, which are to be completed by mid-2024. The upgrades will provide Pact with the capability and capacity to meet growing demand for sustainable packaging, enabling the company to provide customers with solutions that will support them in complying with the Government’s 2025 National Packaging Targets. These require 100% of packaging being reusable, recyclable or compostable with 20% average recycled content included in plastic packaging. The investments will also support delivery of Pact’s own sustainability target to provide 30% recycled content across its portfolio by 2025. The investments will be made across four areas of Pact’s manufacturing operations. Upgrades to national dairy packaging equipment at facilities in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, and Western Australia to enable up to 50% recycled content for HDPE milk bottles. Installation of world-leading technology at facilities in New South Wales and Victoria to boost production capability for PET drink bottles with 100% recycled content. Upgrades to Sulo mobile garbage bin manufacturing facilities in New South Wales and Victoria to increase production capacity to support the rollout of “four bin” waste management initiatives and increase the use of recycled content to 80% from the current average of 30%. New equipment at Pact’s industrial packaging manufacturing plants in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland to upgrade production facilities to enable increased recycled content in the manufacture of plastic paint pails and plastic cubes used in agricultural chemical and industrial applications. The investments will create more than 250 permanent fulltime jobs in Pact’s facilities and a further 120 jobs during the construction and installation phase of the projects. The upgrades complement Pact’s investments in recycling infrastructure in Australia, including a new PET recycling facility in Albury, which will be operational next month, a HDPE recycling facility in Melbourne, a further PET recycling facility at a location yet to be identified, and several other projects that are under evaluation. Materials recycled through these facilities will include plastic waste collected from household recycling bins (such as milk bottles, food containers, and bottle tops), bottles from container deposit schemes, as well as old mobile garbage bins and other industrial waste. www.pactgroup.com Small bottle recycling initiative Amcor Rigid Packaging (ARP) is announcing a technological advancement that makes it possible for billions of small bottles to be recycled. ARP states to first apply the technology to 50ml rPET spirits bottles which are often lost in the recycling process due to their small size. The size of these bottles presents challenges at most U.S. material recycling facilities (MRFs). The bottles tend to slip out of the sorting process where broken glass is filtered out for disposal. With its pledge to develop all its packaging to be recyclable, compostable or reusable by 2025, Amcor is innovating to increase the recyclability of its products. Seeing an opportunity for improvement, ARP’s team of engineers examined the issue and began designing a container that collapses in a controlled way to maximise its width. With a collapsed width greater than 5 cm, this design would no longer slip through the cracks at most U.S. recycling facilities. “This discovery was made by the Amcor team when testing revealed that the bottles collapse in different ways,” said Terry Patcheak, VP of Research & Development and Advanced Engineering at ARP. “Our simulations demonstrated that when these tiny spirits bottles are designed to collapse in a specific way, fewer bottles actually fall through the cracks. The potential here is higher recyclability rates and more recycled content for multiple segments and materials.” Amcor’s bottle design includes intentional failure points and is based on the Association of Plastic Recyclers specific guidelines. Finite Element Analysis testing is being undertaken to better understand the dynamics of these small bottles during the recycling process. Additionally, ARP will partner with recycling facilities to capture real-world data about the recyclability of its new bottle. www.amcor.com
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