Dive Brief:
- Amcor says it is furthering its plastics recycling efforts with a recently announced investment to expand “advanced recycling” capacity in Australia.
- Amcor, along with major food, snack and candy company Mondelēz International, is supporting Australian recycling technology company Licella in constructing a facility with its Catalytic Hydrothermal Reactor technology, which the companies say will “recycle end-of-life plastic back into a crude oil substitute suitable to produce new food-grade plastic packaging.”
- As capacity increases, this method will play a key role in Amcor’s recycled content goals — especially with getting flexible packaging back into the value stream, considering the challenges with turning mixed waste back into food-grade material, said Frank Lehmann, vice president of corporate venturing and open innovation at Amcor, in an interview.
Dive Insight:
As packaging manufacturers and brands alike target recycled content to make up greater portions of their overall plastic use, many are looking ahead to chemical recycling, also known as advanced recycling.
The process uses a variety of technologies — Licella’s Cat-HTR leverages hot, pressurized water — and generally involves breaking plastics down into basic chemicals that can then be built up into new plastics and products. This process is seen by some as an attractive option for certain packaging, such as snack wrappers, that aren’t widely collected or processed through mechanical recycling.
While plastics supporters promote chemical recycling as a new manufacturing process, some groups in the traditional recycling space say “recycling” in that context is a misnomer. Many environmental groups criticize chemical recycling as a distraction from using less plastic and say these facilities can pollute communities.
Some companies such as Dow count advanced recycling efforts toward broader ESG goals. Amcor itself is targeting 30% recycled content across its portfolio by 2030. The company said in its 2022 sustainability report that since fiscal year 2019, it has more than doubled its purchase of recycled content. The 155,000 metric tons of recycled resin and aluminum Amcor bought in fiscal year 2022 represented 4.8% by weight of all the materials purchased.
Mondelēz, whose products include Clif Bars, Oreos, Cadbury chocolate and more, has a “light and right” packaging strategy and is aiming to include 5% recycled plastic content by 2025. In 2022, that figure stood at 1%. Amcor and Mondelēz joined with PepsiCo, Unilever, Colgate Palmolive, Mars and other major companies last year in calling for access to up to 800,000 metric tons of chemically recycled plastics by 2030.
Other major packaging manufacturers have also pursued similar partnerships. For example, Berry Global has partnered with SABIC and PureCycle. And SEE, or Sealed Air, recently announced a collaboration in Australia with ExxonMobil.
Amcor is also working with ExxonMobil. The companies announced in December a five-year deal for Amcor to purchase polyethylene material, incrementally increasing to 100,000 metric tons annually.
Licella’s forthcoming Advanced Recycling Victoria is estimated to be operational by the end of 2024, according to an Amcor spokesperson, and Amcor’s recent investment totaled $5 million (Australian dollars). The site is expected to initially process 20,000 tons of “end-of-life plastic” per year, with plans to scale up to six times that annually. Amcor, along with Nestlé, LyondellBasel and others, was a supporter of Licella’s feasibility study.
Mondelēz will access recycled content from this site via Amcor. The material will go into Mondelēz’s soft plastic packaging in Australia, “significantly reducing” the company’s need for virgin plastic on the continent, according to the announcement. Separately, Mondelēz is already accessing packaging with 30% recycled content from Amcor for certain Cadbury offerings in Australia.