ITALY – Versalis, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Italian oil firm Eni, has started using packaging made from recycled raw materials from post-consumer industrial packaging.
Europe records 40.5% of the total plastic demand being utilized in the packaging industry. In the case of single-use, this packaging quickly generates a lot of waste that risks ending up in the environment.
In an attempt to find a remedy, Versalis has set up two projects, “Bag to Bag” and “Liner to Liner” to create a virtuous circle to recover and recycle industrial polyethylene packaging bags and put them back into the system.
The first project “Bag to Bag” utilizes bags from packaging and shipping polyethylene products, particularly those intended for food applications.
These sacks are manufactured from 50% recycled materials and are fully recyclable due to their design specifically developed to reduce the use of ink in labeling.
Versalis said that the project passed the test according to requirements at all the company’s operating sites.
The project has been in use at the Ragusa and Ferrara facilities for a few months, and it will be active in Brindisi, Dunkirk, and Oberhausen plants by the end of the year.
The second project “Liner to Liner” is developed and implemented mostly at the Brindisi plant.
It recycles the inner linings (Liners) of containers used to transport bulk polyethylene into new Liners that contain 50% recycled plastic and are utilized at the Apulian industrial location.
It will also be easy to construct a short supply chain to consume, collect, recycle, and make regenerated Liners due to the number of recycling enterprises in the vicinity.
Versalis uses approximately 1,250 tonnes of bags and 175 tonnes of Liners each year.
According to the firm, both projects will cut the consumption of virgin raw materials by 50%, resulting in a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions.
In 2020, Versalis joined the Circular Plastics Alliance (CPA) to contribute to the European target of using 10 million tonnes of recycled plastic in new goods by 2025, including single-use industrial packaging.
In August 2020, Versalis signed an agreement to develop and market a new range of solid polystyrene products made from recycled packaging.
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