Inline Plastics has introduced post-consumer content reborn from chemical recycling into every one of its products. Born from cutting-edge technology, rDPET is a food-grade plastic material that produces high performing, quality packaging with the lowest carbon footprint on the market.
The move is expected to divert almost 1 billion water bottles from the oceans and landfills annually, utilize more than 50 percent less energy in the material production process and reduce the carbon footprint by 112,000 acres of forest or emissions equal to 233 million miles driven per year.
Carrie Cline, product manager for Shelton, CT-based Inline Plastics, noted as an industry leader, the company looks to raise the bar with new groundbreaking approaches.
“It’s imperative to continually advance our sustainability strategies as a manufacturer of PET food containers,” she said. “Our first big implementation was over a decade ago when we transitioned to the patented DPET material that has a significantly lower carbon footprint than traditional PET. This was long before plastics received today’s heightened awareness.”
The key differences between rDPET and traditional PET plastics are the proprietary chemical recycling and the energy efficient direct to sheet process.
The biggest challenge of utilizing rDPET is sourcing the post-consumer raw material as the global recycling rate is only at 9 percent.
“With the heightened awareness on sustainability the demand for post-consumer flake has significantly increased,” Cline said. “We chose to spread the post-consumer content throughout all our products, currently at 10 percent, rather than narrowing the product offerings down to one or two product lines to inflate the PCR percentage. We will increase the PCR content as we are able to obtain more.”
Additionally, she noted there are a wide range of content claims in the industry today and, in some cases, they are unsubstantiated. Inline is partnering with a third-party that verifies all its post-consumer claims.
“Reborn will divert close to 1 billion bottles annually from the oceans and landfills, while reducing our carbon footprint,” Cline said. “We add value to customer’s sustainability strategies and with all our products containing post-consumer content, customers have the flexibility to select the right product for their applications.”
Cline said it is important to support the circular economy by finding ways to reuse and renew materials.
“Recycling at the molecular level, also called chemical recycling, produces the highest quality material, with the longest life potential,” she said. “With traditional mechanical recycling, plastic loses quality and performance which limits the number of times it can be recycled, eventually ending up in a landfill. On the other hand, chemical recycling strips the post-consumer flake down to the molecules and re-polymerizes them with virgin ones, making virgin-like material. This method would allow plastic to be recycled multiple times, while preserving quality.”
She added that the company is a proud industry innovation and continually assesses opportunities to improve its sustainability position and reduce the carbon footprint.
For example, in 2018, its headquarters installed a new solar roof, which provides about 15 percent of the power required in the Shelton-based plant.
“It is important to understand consumers and help educate them about recycling,” Cline said. “Some consumers do not know that PET can be recycled, so we are actively embossing ‘Please Recycle Me’ on new products to enhance consumer awareness.”
