RecyClass has issued a statement in which it charges a UK testing lab with misusing its recyclability protocols.
Recyclass moreover roundly refutes any involvement in the testing of the new cling film developed by a UK startup called Polymateria, despite claims of the testing lab that would suggest the contrary.
Impact Solutions, the UK-based testing lab asked by Polymateria to assess the recyclability of polyethylene (PE) containing Biotransformation additive technology developed by Polymateria, a startup based at Imperial College London’s White City Campus. Called PLM-G, the technology, claims Polymateria, yields a plastic cling film that breaks down within a year and can also be recycled.
The report compiled by Impact Solutions, published February 18, 2021, states that the tests were carried out in “our independent laboratories that run analysis on different samples, following the procedures of the RecyClass Recyclability Evaluation Protocol for PE films”.
In response, RecyClass has released the following statement:
“As the laboratory testing was done according to the ‘RecyClass Recyclability Evaluation Protocol for PE Films’, RecyClass would like to clarify that it was contacted by Polymateria to perform laboratory analysis of the PLM-G film in question on May 13, 2019. The composition and “oxidation” properties of this material are described in the patent description of Polymateria Since degradable plastics are explicitly excluded from the scope of the RecyClass protocols, RecyClass answered Polymateria on May 14, 2019 stating clearly that it cannot run such test as the RecyClass Recyclability Evaluation Protocols are based on a harmonised methodology to test the recyclability of a specific technology in a defined, conventional plastics recycling stream.”
RecyClass added that, in the light of the above, the claim made in the report in question, that the RecyClass ‘Recyclability Evaluation Protocol for PE Films’ to verify the recyclability of a degradable film was used, should not have been made.
Furthermore, RecyClass stressed the fact that Impact Solutions is not an officially accredited RecyClass laboratory.