Coca-Cola European Partners (CCEP) has invested in recycling start-up CuRe Technology as it looks to eliminate virgin oil-based PET from its packaging within the next decade.
CuRe Technology says it uses a partial depolymerisation process to break down PET into its component building blocks to produce food-grade rPET.
CuRe Technology’s management team (l-r): Josse Kunst, CCO; Marc Brons, CTO; and, Mark Ruesnik, chief recycling officer
CCEP says its funding will enable CuRe to accelerate its ‘polyester rejuvenation’ technology from pilot plant to commercial readiness.
Joe Franses, vice president of sustainability at CCEP, said: “CuRe is an exciting technology start-up with transformational potential developed by an experienced consortium, making it an ideal investment for CCEP Ventures.
“Our investment in CuRe underlines our commitment to supporting innovations that have the potential to drive growth in our business and our sustainable packaging goals.
“It also offers us the potential to access vital rPET volumes that will help to accelerate delivery of our 100% rPET ambition for our PET bottles.”
CCEP has pledged to eliminate virgin oil-based PET from its PET bottles within the next decade.
Depolymerisation
CuRe Technology is a consortium led by plastics producers Morssinkhof Group and DuFor/Cumapol Group. DSM-Niaga and NHL Stenden University of Applied Science are strategic partners to the company.
CuRe’s pilot plant is based in the Netherlands
Through a partial depolymerisation process, CuRe seeks to rejuvenate food grade PET waste by partially breaking it down into smaller components, before removing impurities and rebuilding it into rPET which could replace virgin, oil-based PET in food packaging manufacturing.
Depolymerisation recycling technologies complement existing mechanical polymer recycling processes, CCEP says.
Once the technology is commercialised, CCEP will receive most of the output from a CuRe-licensed, new-build plant.
Polyester
CuRe says its longer-term ambition is to upcycle all polyester waste streams, including product to product rejuvenation of carpets and textiles.
CuRe says its longer-term ambition is to upcycle all polyester waste streams
Josse Kunst, chief commercial officer at CuRe Technology, said: “Polyester is one of the world’s most reversible plastics and should not go to waste. In the pilot plant phase of the CuRe process, we were supported with a subsidy from the European Union and the three northern provinces of the Netherlands.
“Now our ambition to create an energy-efficient solution for product-to-product polyester transformation will be accelerated because of this funding.”
He added: “The support of CCEP Ventures will enable us to start with opaque and difficult to recycle food grade PET and take the first step towards our ultimate vision of recycling all polyester, again and again.”
Sustainability
As part of their joint sustainability action plan CCEP and Coca-Cola in Western Europe have pledged that by 2025, Coca-Cola will collect a can or bottle for every one it sells and ensure that all its packaging is 100% recyclable.
They have pledged that by 2023 it will ensure that at least 50% of the content of its PET bottles will come from recycled content.
CCEP says that by 2019 it was already using 60,000 tonnes of rPET in its bottles.
In May, the company said that, having changed the bottles used for its Glacéau Smartwater to be made from recycled PET (rPET), it ended 2019 at 29% rPET across its portfolio (see letsrecycle.com story).
Recycling
Nick Brown, head of sustainability at CCEP Great Britain, said: “We know that we have a key role to play in supporting the on-going development of a successful and effective recycling industry.
“That’s why we’ve invested in numerous recycling technologies and partnerships over the years, from when we first began using recycled PET in our bottles in the 1990s, to our joint venture with Clean Tech UK in 2012, to more recently partnering with Loop Industries and Ioniqa to turn post-consumer PET into food-grade recycled PET.
“From later this year all of our bottles will contain 50% rPET, and this partnership with CuRe marks another significant milestone in our ambition to achieve a world without waste.”
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Source: letsrecycle.com Plastic
