Recyclates with food contact
Greiner Packaging already uses packaging solutions made of up to 100 percent PET recyclates, so-called rPET, and wants to demonstrate that this is what the food packaging of the future could look like. With the help of the heat-resistant material rPET HTS, in the future, recycled PET is said to be usable even for products that require sterilization through heat. The packaging manufacturer has also developed a self-separating cardboard-plastic-combination which is supposed to make recycling easier. This is achieved by the cardboard wrap, which stabilizes a plastic cup manufactured with thin walls, already separating from this cup by itself during the waste collection process. Cardboard and plastic can thus already be sorted into the correct flow of material during the first separation process, meaning before the packaging even reaches the recycling plant.
Doris Bünnagel has been working for German packaging media for over 20 years after studying natural sciences at the University of Cologne and training as a journalist at the Institute of German Business. Since the end of 2019, she has been working as a freelance editor at packaging journal (ella Verlag & Medien). Her favorite topics: environmentally friendly packaging materials, exciting automation solutions and the ideas of young packaging developers.