Vanden Recycling Expands with New Flexible Packaging Division
Vanden has appointed Markku Tikkanen as Director of Business Development for flexible packaging, as the recycling company sets its sights on becoming the largest supplier of recycled resin to the flexible packaging market.
Markku Tikkanen’s new role as Director of Business Development for flexible packaging is a global role is dedicated to growing the business’ new recycled resin division, providing a consistent high-volume supply of quality recycled resins to manufacturers of flexible packaging.
Vanden Reycling’s natural expansion into the recycled resins market sees it optimising the use of recycled plastics in flexible packaging films and resins. The new division will offer outsourced procurement of recycled resins with a diversified supply chain. Vanden’s expertise means the new division will also provide technical assessments, supply source validation and technical advice advisory in recycled resins and feedstock.
Markku joins Vanden with nearly 15 years of experience of packaging value chains working with prime/virgin based packaging solutions including commercial roles, e.g. with a major global prime polymer supplier overseeing 75,000MT/a (>€80MM/a) of PE sales in the flexible packaging market.
Markku Tikkanen comments: “Plastics are remarkably well-performing materials for packaging applications with excellent properties vs weight ratio. Currently, only a fraction of the material is recycled and reused, which negatively affects the reputation of plastics.
“By utilising our team’s wide experience in flexible packaging value chain and recycling, together with our partners – we are developing a solid and widescale solution portfolio of recycled plastics resins for the flexible packaging segment. Vanden feedstock will only be derived from recycled feedstocks, enhancing the conversion from linear to the circular economy and reducing the tonnage of valuable plastics ending up into landfills.”
Damien van Leuven, CEO of Vanden Global, speaks of his confidence in Markku taking the lead in this division of the business:
“Markku’s the first of several global directors of business development recruitments we’re making in the coming 12 months that will be dedicated to helping converters and plastic manufacturers across the world, access a reliable supply of recycled plastics to meet their legislative and CSR targets.
“We’re confident Markku will deliver a great deal of value to the Flexible Packaging industry, helping producers to navigate the relatively unchartered waters the sector is entering with recycled content requirements. His customer-focused approach and technical knowledge will help make Vanden a leader in the supply of recycled plastics to the flexible packaging market.”
Markku adds: “We have multiple target segments where we can increase the usage of recycled resins in flexible packaging, including industrial, consumer and agriculture, to name a few and are continuously exploring new applications.
“We want to give the valuable recycled feedstock multiple lives as recycled plastics in a wide scale of applications by utilising our long expertise in recycled feedstock management. We are building on this knowledge to improve the quality of recycled resins with the unique Vanden processes that have been tailored for recycling businesses.”
For more information on Vanden’s new recycled resin solution for the flexible packaging sector, please contact Markku Tikkanen via email on M.Tikkanen@vandenrecycling.com or on Vanden’s website.
Vanden Recycling
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