Ineos Olefins & Polymers has partnered with France-based dairy company Lactalis to produce chemically recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE) milk bottles for its Lactel brand.
"This trial production of 140,000 milk bottles, based on HDPE from advanced recycling technology, is a world first and a major step forward for Lactel towards a circular economy," said Lactel France's general manager Anne Charles-Pinault.
The milk bottles will be produced at Lactalis' manufacturing facilities in Montauban, France. Montauban was certified by The Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB) in April, and the HDPE milk bottles produced there will be fully recyclable.
Ineos will utilise chemical recycling to convert waste plastics into feedstocks for its European crackers, to produce circular HDPE. The amount of chemically-recycled polymers is small, but will probably scale up in the coming years. With the average weight of a one-litre milk bottle being around 50g, this trial production would utilise around 7t of HDPE, as per Argus calculations.
The source of the chemically-recycled feedstock for polymer production was not disclosed, but in April Ineos said it had completed trials of Plastic Energy's chemically recycled feedstock at its Cologne, Germany, cracker site.
Ineos and Plastic Energy also plan to construct a new plant to convert waste plastic into feedstocks. Production is targeted for the end of 2023, but details are not known on the planned capacity nor on location. Ineos' Cologne cracker has a nameplate capacity to produce 1.16mn t/yr of ethylene.
