Recycled content boost for snack packaging

New packaging for a snack food using 50% recycled plastic has been launched by PepsiCo. 

Partners across the supply chain used recovered post-consumer plastic packaging waste and chemical technology to create new polymers from pyrolysis oil. The new packaging has been launched in a pilot in the UK and Ireland for Sunbites, a PepsiCo snack brand.

Partners involved

GreenDot oversee the procurement and supply of the packaging waste, which is converted into pyrolysis oil using Plastic Energy’s technology. Ineos Olefins and Polymers Europe use the oil to produce recycled propylene, before turning it into virgin-quality resin at its plant in Lavera, France. Irplast uses the resin to deliver new packaging films with 50% of post-consumer recycled materials while Amcor transforms the films into printed packaging.

The recycled polymer content is accredited under the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification scheme which certifies that it has been tracked through the production process using mass balance principles.

Pilot market

‘Next to our goal of becoming a feedstock provider for advanced recycling, GreenDot is acting as an enabler of providing pyrolysis oil, working with partners to return plastic waste currently lost from the value chain back into the recycling loop together with our partners,’ says GreenDot ceo Laurent Auguste.

Archana Jagannathan, chief sustainability officer for PepsiCo Europe, says the UK and Ireland lunch is a pilot market which could be extended. ‘Collaboration is key to progressing on our ambition to eliminate virgin fossil-based plastic in all our crisp and chip packaging in Europe by the end of 2030,’ she adds.

Gerald Rebitzer, sustainability director at Amcor, urges more upstream partners to invest in the supply chains for recycled materials.