I am pleased to say that we have recently successfully trialled Tetra Pak material into Re>Pal pallets. This material has been known as being relatively energy intensive to produce, so the fact that we can recycle it, will increase the material’s longevity and therefore spread this energy intensity over the material’s life. We will be able to then re-recycle the material into Re>Pal pallets ad infinitum with other materials or new Tetra Pak recycled material. This producer packaging recycling or upcycling into an asset comes at an interesting time for extended producer responsibility (EPR) in Indonesia following the legislation changes in December 2019. These will affect Food & Beverage industry, Retail and Manufacturing industries. We are pleased to be able to support producer responsibility initiatives with these sectors to look to recycle the manufacturer’s waste into our pallets, and even if the percentage is only 5% into our pallets, this can still be an enormous number of harder to recycle items such as sachets or pouches.
The Tetra Pak material is known as Polymer Alumunium (PolyAL) and it is what’s left from the Tetra Pak cartons after the cardboard is separated before it comes to Re>Pal. We receive the reprocessed PolyAL clean flake material, and after further re-processing at Re>Pal, and pelletising the waste, we were able to extrude it into our Re>Pal pallets. It made an excellent pallet and we used 100% PolyAL in the pallet! We see that there will be potential for marketing this through the Tetra Pak client base, we appreciate our partnership with them, and we also appreciate the closed loop and zero waste nature using this material into our pallets.
You would know about the Danone Aqua and DynaPack initiatives we have discussed in prior newsletters to recycle their waste into pallets. I am sure that this ‘upcycling’ trend will only gather pace as companies realise that consumers are increasingly aware of the challenges the natural world faces, and consumers, companies and Governments all must play their part in ensuring a healthy planet. It is good to see Indonesia being proactive in this area as it also looks to close the loop on packaging materials in collaboration with the industry.
Photo: Pak Reza Andreanto (3rd from the left) of Tetra Pak also helping Re>Pal celebrate at the IBCSD awards night!
