Versalis, Eni's chemical company, has added a new product to its Revive portfolio of circular products based on recycled raw materials. The company has developed a food-compliant recyclable tray that incorporates its Versalis Revive PS material, a compound made from 75% polystyrene derived from post-consumer waste.
The new tray resulted from the company’s existing collaboration with Italian recycler Forever Plast S.p.A., as part of a collaborative project with three other players in the polystyrene industry value chain.
The recycled polystyrene used in the tray is supplied by member companies of Pro Food, who is one of these three other partners. The other two are Corepla, the National Consortium for the Collection, Recycling and Recovery of Plastic Packaging and Unionplast Plastic Rubber Federation.
The tray is structured with an inner layer containing Versalis Revive PS Air F - Series Forever, developed in collaboration with Forever Plast, and two outer layers made from virgin polystyrene. This A-B-A functional barrier structure ensures the tray’s approval for food contact applications. The functional barrier was designed and tested in collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging (IVV).
Currently, three products make up the Revive portfolio: Versalis Revive EPS, expandable polystyrene with up to 30% of recycled content from end-of-life products; Versalis Revive PS, solid polystyrene-based compounds containing up to 75% of recycled solid polystyrene; and Versalis Revive PE, polyethylene-based compounds containing up to 75% of post-consumer recycled plastic packaging.
All Revive products are obtained through the mechanical recycling of post-consumer waste plastics and waste recovered from the industry supply chain.