Essel Propack, an Indian multi-national company in the business of manufacturing laminated plastic tubes, has announced the availability of its innovative recyclable HDPE barrier tubes. Essel Propack’s Platina 250 and Green GML 300 Lamitubes have been recognized by Association of Plastic Recyclers(APR), USA as meeting or exceeding the strict APR HDPE critical guidance criteria. This achievement is a major step forward in delivering on Essel’ssustainability commitments.
On the occasion, Essel Propack’s Business Leadership team said, “We are extremely delighted, as this will open the doors for many such innovations in the near future and we will proactively reach out to every customer to convert to this packaging format and increase the economy of scale to make this an easy adapting solution for every brand. This will enable Essel Propack to globally participate with customers and help them to achieve their sustainability commitments.”
The R&D team based in Essel’s innovation facility in Maharashtra worked on several designs and formulation options in developing recyclable HDPE barrier tubes. After use, the Platina and GML tubes can be recycled in the dominant plastic stream used across the globe for recycling milk cans, juice bottles, etc. The use of HDPE in Platina and GML tubes increases the stiffness of the tubes, enabling down gauging/reducing polymer content.
Following this development, Essel will be working closely with partners to streamline the value chain of the tube usages and disposal of the same along with the reusability of its contents in different product streams. The company will promote this to partners and work with different municipalities, local agencies and raw
material users where the tube recycled resin qualifies to be out into different product raw material streams. One such initiative is the project Liberty & Etain (PCR) tubes. Another notable initiative includes Project Liberty. With the vision to make every tube made by Essel recyclable, it is an attempt by the company to recycle multilayer aluminum-based lamitubes.
Using proprietary technology, Project Liberty allows for the separation of the aluminum and polymers into two distinct and reusable streams, without the use of any chemicals or heat. Once separated, both the aluminum and polymer fractions recovered from ABL tubes can be recycled safely. Etain (PCR tubes) are made with up to 25% post-consumer recycled resin content, promoting the use of PCR resins and reducing the demand for virgin raw materials.
