Winners of EPRO Innovation and Sustainability in Plastics Recycling Announced
At the IdentiPlast gala dinner on 7th March 2019, EPRO announced the winners of the EPRO biennial awards aimed at recognising innovative and sustainable recycled plastic products. The winning entries were presented with trophies made from recycled plastic yoghurt pots, by PlasticsEurope President, Javier Constante from DOW.
“I am delighted to announce the winners of the 8th EPRO Best Recycled Plastic Product Awards, and I can only commend everyone for their innovations within plastics circularity. Their forward thinking approach and entrepreneurial spirit are proof that we are on the right track to enabling the new plastics economy”, said Javier Constante, President of PlasticsEurope.
Orkla Home and Personal Care brushed aside the competition to win the Sustainability category with the Jordan Green Clean Toothbrush which is gaining positive responses from consumers. The toothbrush handle is made of post-consumer, food grade recycled plastic. The filaments are Nylon 1010 and 100% bio-based.
Daniel Bondeson, Senior Product Developer, Orkla Home and Personal Care commented: “We are delighted to have won this important award, especially given the tough competition. We hope this award will inspire designers, manufacturers and other key players to continue the journey for more circular thinking when developing products still answering to trends and quality. We also hope that the recognition of this product will highlight the need for better infrastructure and sorting of recyclates. Orkla are dedicated to decoupling our plastic feedstock from fossil source to either recycled or bio-based alternatives.”
Alpla Werke, Alwin Lehner GmbH & Co KG with ‘The Simple One’, were victors in the Innovation
category. The bottle design does not have the need for a cap, is 60% lighter than a conventional HDPE bottle and is itself 100% recyclable and can be used for refills or single use packaging and is particularly suited to single use packaging. Produced from a single (mono) layer of HDPE the pack is itself 100% recyclable. The Head of Recycling Technology at Alpla, Michael Heyde, commented on receiving the award: ”With the reduction of material and careful selection of recyclable material, The Simple One underlines ALPLA’s efforts for an environmentally conscious use of resources. We are very proud of this innovation award. It proves that we are on the right path and encourages us for future developments.”
”Both winning products are very innovative and great ambassadors for plastic recycling.”, says EPRO Secretary General, Peter Sundt. ”We wish the winners and all the other 47 participants good luck with their products and further efforts towards a circular economy. We need such frontrunners that can lead the way.”
Stuart Foster, CEO of RECOUP, (who are the UK EPRO members) said, “we continue to work hard to educate both businesses and consumers on the benefits of recycling plastics, and to use and specify recycled plastics in products. Only through increasing demand for recycled content can we all hope to deliver on the promise of better plastic resource efficiency, more circular value chains, and more plastic recycling.
