Retail solutions provider Mainetti Group is no stranger to sustainability practices. Sixty years ago, the Italian innovator pioneered garment hanger recycling, introducing sustainability practices that continue to lead the industry. The company also operates extensive reuse programs, redistributing hangers for reintroduction into the supply chain through its global network of companies.
Mainetti's newest initiative is PolyLoop, aimed at addressing the need for more packaging made from recycled plastic.
PolyLoop is a global Clear Polythene Recycling Process which enables Mainetti to provide its customers with a closed-loop recycling system for all of their clear polythene sourcing requirements. This is a first of its kind initiative that is truly global, leveraging Mainetti’s network of 14 manufacturing and recycling operations around the world.
As a globally operating group, Mainetti can offer customers the ability to source clear polythene film containing 30 per cent post-consumer recycled scrap material from any of its production sites in the world. The process sees post-consumer scrap materials collected, cleaned and processed within the UK before being distributed to Mainetti’s manufacturing sites offshore.
The PolyLoop programme will help customers to meet the new requirements of the plastics packaging tax announced last week in the UK, said the company. The government plans to charge manufacturers and importers £200 per tonne on packaging made of less than 30 per cent of recycled plastic by April 2022. Poly Loop will be instrumental in supporting the government’s aims of boosting the use of recycled plastics by 40 per cent.
Extensive development work and quality testing of PolyLoop has been completed over the past 18 months and the first industrial-scale processing line will become operational in the UK in July of this year, Mainetti owns the sole rights to the technology.