Post Consumer LDPE

What is Post Consumer Recycled Polyethylene?

Post-consumer plastics and recycled plastic polymers from separate collection of household waste are a relatively recent achievement in a world moving towards circularity of goods and resources. As part of the circular economy (i.e. the study and application of methods, production systems and legislation to recycle products at the end of their life), plastics are certainly a major player in collection, processing and reuse.

Recycled plastic is defined as post-consumer when the product, in the form of packaging or a finished object, fulfils the task for which it is produced and is delivered, through separate collection, to mechanical recycling plants to create new raw material in a sort of continuos circularity.

Where does recycled plastic come from?

In Italy, the collection of post-consumer waste and its basic sorting is mainly entrusted to national consortia, such as Corepla for packaging such as HDPE, PP, LDPE, PET and PS, Coripet for PET packaging only, and Conip for rigid packaging from the fruit, and vegetable sector, to name but a few. But each country, where separate collection is regulated and organised, has its own national collection facility(s). Among the most collected and recycled products are:

• LDPE, low-density polyethylene, which comes from the collection of flexible packaging, such as bags, wrapping films, tarpaulins and rigid packaging such as flowor pots;
• HDPE, high density polyethylene, which mainly comes from the collection of detergent bottles and liquid canisters;
• PP, polypropylene, which is derived from flexible packaging such as packaging films, but also from rigid packaging such as crates, bumpers, games, chairs, tables, building products such as pipes, siphons, grids, crawl spaces, tiles, buckets;
• PS, polystyrene, which comes from packaging, pots and many articles for the building and electrical sector, such as power sockets, switchboards;
• PET, polyethylene therephtalate, in post-consumer plastics is mainly expressed by mineral water and soft drink bottles.

What benefit does it offer?

The various packaging with post-consumer plastics is produced by using granules from recycled flexible packaging such as bags, packaging films and roofing sheets. In this way, for particular types of production, compatible with a recycled material, it is possibile to significantly reduce the environmental impact of the products supplied. The packaging that is thus produced is of absolute quality and sustainable, because it is obained by, recycling existing resources.

The importance of recycling for a more sustainable economy

The processing of post-consumer plastic packaging involves an in-depth knowledge of collection chain, industrial waste recycling systems and the application of the resulting raw material to make new products.

Separate collection of plastics, but also of other products such as glass, metals, wood, paper, rubber, contributes significantly to reducing the carbon footprint, to regulating waste management so that it is not lost to the environment and to saving raw materials that would otherwise have to be extracted from the planet.

Collecting waste, recycling it, creating new raw materials from waste, producing new products through the circularity of the production and consumption system is one of the keys, but not the only one, to a better world.

It is a very important supply chain, also on an economic level, which actively contributes to state budgets, provides jobs and creates an important sustainability between man and nature. it encompasses not only the production of raw materials from waste, but also the industry if machines and moulds for productuion and its control, manufacturers of finished objects made of recycled plastic, service companies, transport companies, research institutions and much more.