GRANGEMOUTH refinery owner Ineos hopes to use the capabilities offered by the complex to help tackle a big environmental challenge facing the food industry.
The chemicals giant has joined a project that aims to develop a new way of producing food packaging from recycled polypropylene (PP) plastic.
The product could be used to help achieve a big increase in the amount of pots and the like that are recycled and to reduce the massive amounts of virgin plastic that are used in the global food industry.
READ MORE: Grangemouth refinery owner sells oil and gas business
Graham MacLennan of Ineos' Olefins and Polymers operation underlined the scale of the challenge.
He said: “In the UK alone we use over 210,000 tonnes of PP in our food packaging every year. It is found in pots, tubs and trays.
“However, the absence of food-grade recycled polypropylene means that all PP food packaging is currently made from virgin plastics. This isn’t unique to the UK but a large global issue.”
PP is hard to recycle in a form that makes it suitable for use in food packaging. Ineos expects to use its expertise to ‘tailor’ recycled PP so that it can be blended with virgin PP for use in the production of a broader range of food packaging.
Ineos said it would be at the centre of an important two-year project that will inform the building of a demonstration plant in the UK to produce 10,000 tonnes per year of food-grade recycled polypropylene.
It did not say where the plant will be built.
The NEXTLOOPP project involves firms in the food production industry and related supply chains and universities. These include Unilever, Viridor and The University of Greenwich.
On its website the project notes: “Polypropylene is the most dominant polymer in the recycling stream. In Europe alone we produce 10 million tons of PP and only 15% of this is being recycled.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here