Florida-based chemical recycler PureCycle Technologies has teamed up with caps and closures manufacturer Reliable Caps to bring rPP closures to market for contact-sensitive applications.
The bright white colourable closures are said to perform like virgin PP and are claimed to be suitable for applications such as food, beverage, personal care, and household product packaging.
They are made with PureFive Ultra resin, considered to be a domestically sourced, high-quality rPP using up to 75 per cent certified post-consumer recycled (PCR) material.
The resin is processed through PureCycle’s proprietary dissolution technology to remove contaminants, colours, and odours from PCR packaging.
It is also reportedly GreenCircle-certified, enabling brand owners to report PCR content in their packaging with full chain-of-custody documentation.
Meeting customer requirements
Cameron Manuel, president of Reliable Caps said the business had “for years” been searching for rPP that met its customers’ PCR requirements, carried sufficient US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approvals, and processed more like a virgin resin.
“The PCR grades available to us in the past fell short on all three fronts: inconsistent colour, inconsistent melt flow, and processing behaviour – which made it difficult to hold the quality standards our customers expect,” he said.
“PureFive resin solves all of that. Its consistency and processing qualities are closer to virgin resin than anything else we’ve worked with, which means we can hold tight quality standards throughout an entire production run.
“It also carries the highest level of US FDA approvals for PCR we’ve seen to date. The white closures we produced are something we’re genuinely proud of. They look premium, they run well, and they carry the certified PCR content that brand owners are asking for.
‘An exciting moment’
“Being among the first converters to bring this to market is an exciting moment for our team.”
Alexander King, senior vice-president of commercial for the Americas at PureCycle Technologies said: “Reliable Caps’ success in producing these closures is exactly the kind of milestone we envisioned when we began commercialising this game-changing recycling technology.”
Brand owners and packaging converters across North America and Europe are facing an increasingly complex regulatory environment.
Extended Producer Responsibility frameworks enacted across multiple US states and the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation are collectively mandating minimum levels of recycled content in packaging.
