THE founder of the firm behind a system which will enable Pets at Home customers to have hard-to-recycle packs recycled says he hopes the move makes people think more rationally about the benefits of plastic.
“Plastic doesn’t go to the ocean because it wants a sun tan; it goes to the ocean because someone has dropped it on the ground,” Dr Carlos Ludlow-Palafox, founder and CEO of Enval, told Packaging Scotland. “It’s a waste management and education issue; not a plastics problem.”
The firm’s microwave induced pyrolysis process will see packaging, such as cat food pouches, heated up to 600 degrees in order to separate the aluminium and plastic layers – with the former being recovered, whilst the plastic is converted into oils and gases.
Dr Ludlow-Palafox explained the system will help alleviate public concerns over plastic pollution, whilst also ensuring that brands aren’t pressured into deviating from tried and tested packaging.
“I do believe that plastic is the best kind of packaging that can be used, because it protects the food, it’s cheap and on top we’re able to recycle it,” he added. “You don’t want to change packaging, because not only does it involve an enormous amount of money; you risk impacting the shelf life of the product and possibly ending up with increased food waste or carbon footprint.”
The initiative, which is being backed by Hubbub and pet food producers Mars and Purina, will allow customers to return their used flexible plastic packs to Pets at Home stores at designated collection points. According to Wrap figures from April 2020, just 17% of local authorities in the UK collect such packaging.
Dr Ludlow-Palafox has hopes of utilising the collection points to direct the public to information on why the system is being used and how it works – so as to educate them on not just the benefits of plastic, but also the responsibility we all have to discard of it properly.
The deal with Pets at Homes comes shortly off the back of a partnership between Enval and Kraft Heinz and Sonoco, focusing on the American market, which Dr Ludlow-Palafox said sees the firms exploring the possibility of creating three plants in the country.
“Pyrolosis is a relatively new technology and getting a new technology to be used by the majority of waste handlers is going to take some time,” he explained. “So, as a consequence, what we are doing is operating our process more and liaising with the companies that have a clear interest in demonstrating that all this packaging formats can actually be recycled. We are not going to change the waste handling world at all, but we can contribute with little projects here and there that can demonstrate that this is actually recyclable – and those two words are different; one thing is recyclable, the other recycled.”
He added that the Enval pyrolosis process, which operates in a localised modular fashion, doesn’t just bring benefits from a recycling point of view, but also in terms of lowering emissions in transportation. Because the plastic is broken into oil, it is transported in a tanker rather than a flatbed.
“It just makes sense transporting oil because you have densified the product,” Dr Ludlow-Palafox added. “If you have 12 pallets of bales – each of them with half a tonne of plastic – that’s six tonnes of waste in each truck. When we pyrolise it and produce the oil, the tanker carriers 26 tonnes of oil.”
Moving forward, Enval has hopes that the system is utilised by more retailers and in turn the problem of plastic waste and public perception of the material is altered.
“The majority of people are enthusiastic about this,” he said. “We are having ongoing talks with ten plastic producers and several conversations with retailers in the UK. I think that, at the end of the day, all of them will talk to us – there’s a lot of plastic waste and our system offers a solution.”
