Recently,TotalEnergies Corbion has released a white paper on the recyclability of PLA Bioplastics entitled "Keep the Cycle Going: Rethinking PLA Bioplastics Recycling". It summarizes the current PLA recycling market, regulations and technologies. The white paper provides a comprehensive outlook and vision that PLA recycling is feasible, economically viable, and can be universally used as a scrapping solution for PLA bioplastics.
The white paper shows that the ability of PLA to regenerate an identical PLA resin by water decomposable polymerization makes it a recycled material. The new recycled polylactic acid maintains the same quality and food contact approval. The Luminy rPLA grade contains 20% or 30% recycled ingredients derived from a mixture of post-consumer and post-industrial recycled PLA and is third-party certified by SCS Global Services.
Luminy rPLA contributes to meeting the EU's growing recycling targets for plastic packaging waste, as outlined in the revised EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (PPWD).It is vital that plastic is reused and recycled responsibly. It comes from the continued relevance of plastics in everyday applications, such as in food hygiene, medical applications and industrial components. The white paper provides real-life examples, such as Sansu, a bottled water supplier in South Korea, who used the existing logistics infrastructure to create a system for recycling used PLA bottles, which were sent to the TotalEnergies Corbion recycling plant for recycling.
Gerrit Gobius du Sart, Scientist at TotalEnergies Corbion, commented: "There is a tremendous opportunity to value PLA waste as a feedstock for chemical or mechanical recycling. Bridging the gap between the current inadequate recycling rates and the forthcoming ambitious EU targets will mean phasing out the linear use of plastics through reduction, reuse, recycling and material recovery. The shift from fossil carbon to biological resources is essential for plastic production, as PLA is derived from sustainable natural resources and has considerable ecological benefits."
Post time: Dec-13-2022
