Winners plastics recycling awards set ‘truly circular’ example

Recycling technology provider Erema and Deutsche Telekom are among the winners of the plastics recycling awards, presented at the Plastics Recycling Show Europe (PRSE) in Amsterdam.

‘This year’s winners are a true testament that a high percentage of recycled content can be used successfully for high-end, branded consumer goods in everyday use,’ says Ton Emans, president of Plastics Recyclers Europe.

Now in their fourth year, the awards highlight how well all plastic value chain actors are collaborating to improve recycling, according to Emans: ‘Everyone from major brands and material producers through to converters, label producers and manufacturers of shredding and extrusion machinery.’

Setting an example

‘This year’s award winners have together made very conspicuous progress in effective design for recycling, which in turn is defining the path towards more recyclable plastic products and the truly circular use of plastics,’ says the jury.

Each winner receives a trophy with a 3D printed base made from 100% recycled ABS plastic car dashboards and a multi-colour top which is laser cut from compressed HDPE bottle caps recovered from beach clean-ups.

And the winners are…

•          Automotive, Electrical or Electronic Product: Speed Home Wlan by Deutsche Telekom

•          Building & Construction Product: Circular Green Rope by Plastix

•          Household & Leisure Product: HÅG Capisco Puls – auburn-coloured chairs made by Flokk from recycled snow plough markers

•          Plastic Packaging Product: No label bottle – 100% recyclable – 100% recycled plastic by Saeme for Danone Eaux France

•          Product Technology Innovation: Recyclable PP trigger sprayer by Reckitt

•          Plastics Recycling Ambassador: Flor Peña Herron, sustainability & circular economy manager at Avery Dennison Label and Packaging Materials

•          Recycling Machinery Innovation (Joint winners): BritAS Recycling-Anlagen’s Abmf-PET-C; Intarema TVEplus RegrindPro + ReFresher by Erema Engineering Recycling Maschinen und Anlagen

The judges’ jury said:

Speed Home WLAN by Deutsche Telekom is made with almost 100% recycled content that comes from the e-scrap, praised as ‘an excellent example of the circular use of plastics into the same class of everyday objects, while maintaining the visual appeal of the exterior design’.

Plastix’s Circular Green Rope shows that it is possible to successfully recycle fishing gear, an application that has proved challenging up until now. This genuinely innovative and holistic cross-industry solution is both a key enabler of the transition to the circular new plastics economy and a real business opportunity.

HÅG Capisco Puls chair from Flokk showed the company’s ‘relentless commitment’ towards sustainable and durable furniture. The new chair features a seat and back shell made of 100% recycled post-consumer polypropylene showing how plastic waste can be recycled into a desirable design without compromising its quality or functionality. It also scored very highly for aesthetics, ergonomics and design.

Evian no label bottle by SAEME for Danone Eaux France is truly innovative packaging. Removing the label from the bottle minimises packaging use and helps the recycling process. The packaging scores A+++ in the RecyClass analysis.

Reckitt’s PP Trigger Sprayer is a significant advance in design to improve the recyclability of this popular product. Trigger sprays often contain multiple materials that can include metal or glass, making them difficult to recycle. Reckitt was commended for reducing the weight of this component and by committing to moving from 22 variants of trigger sprayers to three and reducing the number of colour variations from 42 to six. This excellent example of design for recycling sends an important signal for other companies to follow.

Flor Peña Herron  has set the course for converters, label producers, the packaging industry and the whole value chain in her commitment to work on improving plastic packaging recyclability and recycling in Europe. She leverages multiple platforms including Petcore and RecyClass, and her passion and motivation are delivering real change in making plastics circular.

Intarema TVEplus RegrindPro + ReFresher by Erema applies the company’s existing and very successful ReFresher technology for recycling food contact HDPE containers. The judges recognised this innovation as a step change in eliminating unwanted odour from waste plastics, allowing recyclate to replace virgin plastics in high end applications.