PLASTICS SPECIAL
57recyclinginternational.com | July/August | 2019
Dutch tech leads Unilever
towards PET recycling
Around 2.5 billion people use Unilever products every day. The pro-
ducer acknowledges that this creates a major polyethylene (PET)
waste stream and has therefore recently joined forces with Dutch
plastics recycler Ioniqa.
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Unilever owns more than 300 factories
worldwide, with operations in more
than 100 countries. Its turnover was
EUR 52 billion in 2018, up 5% on the
previous year. Unilever invests roughly
EUR 1 bn in R&D annually and its scien-
tists have been focussing on eco-design
and the ‘smarter’ use of materials.
‘Only around 14% of PET is recycled in
Europe,’ says Sanjeev Das, a packaging
specialist at Unilever. Principal factors
are a lack of infrastructure to collect
and sort discarded plastic and techni-
cal constraints. ‘Recycling coloured or
contaminated plastic has proved
extremely challenging,’ Das adds.
MOLECULAR BREAKDOWN
The good news is that Unilever is col-
laborating with Dutch start-up company
Ioniqa to maximise the recycling poten-
tial. Ioniqa has developed a patented
magnetic catalyst to process PET down
to molecular level – back to its original
building blocks. ‘That means we can
take any type of PET waste and break it
down to remove colour and impurities,’
Das explains. ‘We can then turn it back
into pure, clean, transparent PET plastic
that’s food-grade ready. And the beauty
of it is that this can be repeated over
and over again.’
‘COLOSSAL STEP FORWARD’
Ioniqa’s innovative method also incen-
tivises plastic collection. Scaling up
this technology, the next phase, is
already underway because Ioniqa has
established a 10 000 tonnes capacity
plant in the Netherlands.
Ioniqa’s ceo and founder Tonnis
Hooghoudt says opening the plant in
July is a ‘colossal step forward’ for
plastics recycling. ‘Taking in all types
of PET plastics at scale and upcycling
it into top-quality raw materials allows
us to close the oil tap for making new
PET plastic.’
Hooghoudt reveals that the new site
will supply Indorama, the world’s larg-
est maker of PET resin. In turn,
Indorama will convert Ioniqa’s product
into PET resin to be used in Unilever
packaging by late 2019.
PLASTICS PACT PLEDGE
Meanwhile, Unilever is one of the big
brands supporting the United
Kingdom Plastics Pact, which was
launched in 2018. As a signatory,
Unilever commits to all of its plastic
packaging being reusable, recyclable
or compostable by 2025 and with at
least 25% recycled plastic content.
www.ioniqa.com
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