Seeking to build up the amount of recyclate it uses in packaging in the UK, Alpla UK, a subsidiary of the Austria-based plastic packaging company Alpla Group, has joined forces with waste management and recycling company Biffa, the partners have announced. Under the agreement, Alpla UK will, from May onward, source food-grade polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) plastic pellets from the Biffa recycling plant in Seaham, County Durham, With this, the company will increase the proportion of British recyclate used in the UK for the manufacture of packaging for day-to-day home care household products such as washing-up liquid and cleaning product bottles.
The partnership will promote a local circular economy for plastics in the United Kingdom, in line with Alpla’s aim to ‘push worldwide closed-loop systems on a local level’, said Tasos Pourloukakis, UK Country Managing Director at ALPLA Group.
In February, the Alpla Group announced that it would be investing up to EUR 250 million in globalising its recycling activities between now and 2025 in order to close the materials cycle in as many regions as possible.
“This approach guarantees the highest possible collection rates, recyclability, and quality of the materials. It also reduces the logistical effort related to our packaging solutions. This helps us to achieve the overall objective of reducing CO2 emissions and actively bringing the circular economy forward,” Pourloukakis said.
Biffa can process the equivalent of 1.3 billion bottles a year at its Seaham PET recycling plant, which opened in 2020. The waste management company has set itself the ambitious goal to quadruple its plastics recycling capacity by 2030. The partnership with Alpla will advance its ambition to achieve a more sustainable future built around a circular economy and we’re looking forward to continuing to work with the team to achieve this,’ said Chris Hanlon, commercial director at Biffa Polymers.