Industry group dedicated to ‘fully recyclable’ plastic aerosol packaging

Europe – Petcore Europe and the European Aerosol Federation have created the Plastic Aerosol Recycling Special Industry Group (SiG) in anticipation of the need to recycle more plastic aerosol containers in the coming years.

The group is focusing on finding the best way to increase the recycling volumes for plastic aerosol products at a time when the household packaging waste stream is becoming ever more complex.

Its main tasks will include writing design guidelines as well as setting up suitable collection, sorting and recycling systems, with the ultimate goal of making plastic aerosol packaging ‘fully recyclable’. By 2020, the EU’s Aerosol Dispenser Directive will potentially allow plastic aerosols beyond 220 ml.

‘Currently, the (processing) capacity of aerosols is restricted due to the fact that the directive was written when only brittle plastics were available,’ observes SiG chairman Johannes Burghaus. ‘This led to the approach to treat plastics the same way as coated glass containers.’

Delivering ‘tangible results’ can only be achieved through joint action by all stakeholders from the value chain, stresses FEA’s secretary general Alain D’haese. These include resin suppliers as well as sorting companies, recycling specialists and bottle producers, among others.

‘In line with the new European Plastic Waste Strategy, we need to enable a smooth entry of new plastic aerosol packages to the PET recycling stream,’ states Petcore Europe’s executive director Christian Crepet.