Versalis, the chemical arm of Italian energy company Eni, has launched a new range of recycled polystyrene for food contact packaging.
The grades are sold under the brand name Refence and integrate Versalis’ Revive portfolio of mechanically recycled resins. They have applications such as yogurt pots, trays for meat and fish, and other types of rigid and expanded packaging.
The grades were produced in collaboration with Italy-based polymer recycler Forever Plast, which manufacturers them at industrial scale at its facilities in Lograto. Versalis has developed a technology it calls Newer that purifies recycled polymers in compliance with EU regulations on food contact applications.
The company said the technology has also received a Non-Objection Letter from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Versalis did not provide details on its Newer technology, but purification technologies for polystyrene usually occur at the melt phase followed by filtration. In 2021, the company acquired the technology and plants of Ecoplastic, a De Berg group company specialising in the recovery, recycling and transformation chain of styrenic polymers. Since then, it has been building its first mechanical recycling hub at the site of the former Porto Marghera petrochemical plant in northern Italy.
" We are completing works on our first advanced mechanical recycling hub at Porto Marghera for post-consumer plastics, in particular styrenic polymers,” Adriano Alfani, CEO of Versalis revealed. “Our collaboration with Forever Plast aims to reach application sectors, such as food packaging, where sustainability and quality requirements are essential, thus strengthening our European leadership in mechanical recycling,” he concluded.
Versalis is also involved in chemical recycling. It is building a demonstration plant for its proprietary chemical recycling technology, Hoop, in Mantua, a city in the northern Italian region of Lombardy. It is expected to have a capacity to process 6,000 tonnes of mixed plastic waste per year.