Closed loop recycling packaging

Closed loop recycling materials from class 1 and class 4 can be considered to be safe and in compliance with the legal requirements due to the absence of contamination or the high purification effect of the de- and re-polymerisation steps. The materials from class 2 and 3 should have been sorted to a polymer purity of about 99%, which means also that materials from non-food packaging should also be separated. However, for the special case of PET, the FDA also allows non-food PET as an input material as long as the polymer is in compliance with 21 CFR 177.1630. 

Polymers with programmed closed-loop recyclability (in motor cars and in some major packaging applications) will be recovered by materials recycling and will not be made degradable. 

On an industry level, the plastics industry is woefully lacking in the development of a cradle-to-grave, zero-waste, fully closed-loop recycling solutions. Oh sure, there are some plastic recycling centers here and there, where you can take empty soda bottles and some packaging. But most people need incentives to recycle, and in many places, people are required to go out of their way to recycle even the most environmentally friendly materials. The plastics industry has failed to create any cohesive strategy to enable recycling on a mass scale. 

For use in primary applications, the recycling of plastics waste must be engineered in a clean and segregated closed-loop process [13]. Even packaging material such as film wrap can be collected in bulk from industrial waste therefore, packaging waste can be economically recycled [14]. 

Clean, segregated plastics arising from industrial operations (including the ultimate disposal of motor car components) should be recycled in a closed loop system into the primary application. Some packaging, notably film wrap, that can be easily collected in bulk from industrial waste may be economically resourced in the same way. Clean PVC waste can be effectively reprocessed in this way provided the nature of the plasticiser/stabiliser formulation is known. This will be discussed in detail in the following sections. 

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