This Global Recycling Day, we are celebrating the progress against our long-term vision to become the leading global sustainable packaging supplier and embracing the tremendous opportunities ahead for value chain collaboration, recyclable design, and circularity innovations that pave the pathway forward for a net-zero and circular economy. Together, with our customers and other value chain partners, we are taking critical action to achieve “More Together” for people and the planet by developing products with recycled materials at scale and investing in regional infrastructure to aid in plastic waste recovery.
Boosting Recycled Content in Our Packaging
As one of the world’s leading plastic recyclers, Berry has the current capacity to recycle around 350 million pounds (160,000 tonnes) annually of post-consumer and post-industrial plastic. In addition, we strive to recover as much of our internal scrap as possible, with most of our manufacturing sites across the globe having invested in recycling equipment.
Our leading recycling technologies cover sorting, size reduction, washing, compounding, and decontamination to deliver quality, homogenized materials for circular products. This allows us to develop recycling solutions for customers’ specific product lines.
Celebrating “Recycling Heroes”
The theme for Global Recycling Day this year is #RecyclingHeroes, recognizing the “people, places, and activities that showcase what an important role recycling plays in contributing to an environmentally stable planet and a greener future which will benefit all.”
From engagements in multiple global infrastructure investments needed to increase the use of recycled content and improve the collection and recyclability of plastic waste to agreements for circular resins, we are joining forces with “recycling heroes” across the global value chain to keep resources in use and out of our environment. As previously announced we are working with food brand Heinz, retailer Tesco and Saudi-based chemicals supplier SABIC on an innovative recycling trial in the U.K. designed to close the loop on soft plastic food packaging. We’ve also made strong progress with partners like Mars Wrigley, The Bio-D Company, and Coca-Cola as demonstrated in announcements of in-market circular solutions , such as lighter weight jars made with 15% recycled plastic for M&M’S®, SKITTLES®, and STARBURST® brands, a range of reusable cleaning bottles made with 100% PCR, and a tethered closure for carbonated soft drinks that remains intact with the bottle to improve the likelihood of recycling.
Scaling Recycled Plastics Suitable for Contact Sensitive Applications
The next evolution in our recycling journey will be exploring the introduction of recycled plastic suitable for contact sensitive applications from Berry’s new recycling facility in Leamington Spa, UK. Using our proprietary, closed-loop CleanStream® recycling technology, this new facility not only mechanically recycles domestically recovered household plastic waste, it also washes, sorts, and decontaminates it to produce lower-carbon, contact-sensitive recycled plastic at scale.
With an initial annual recycling capacity of 50,000 tonnes, Leamington Spa has the capacity to recycle nearly 40%* of all polypropylene waste collected from domestic recycling bins in the United Kingdom, helping to close the loop for contact-sensitive packaging. This will help improve access to recycling infrastructure that feeds the real demand we have today, in anticipation of what our customers need for the future.
Learn more about how we are supporting customers’ sustainability goals.