Greenback commissions plant in Mexico

United Kingdom-based Greenback Recycling Technologies started up an advanced recycling plant in late May in Cuautla, Mexico, working in cooperation with Nestlé Mexico. The firm says it also has plans to deploy chemical recycling technology in other parts of Mexico, Latin America and in other parts of the world with surplus plastic scrap.

“I founded Greenback to reduce the environmental impact of the growing amounts of plastic packaging that is not recycled,” Greenback CEO Philippe von Stauffenberg says. “We have created the first industrial, fully circular value chain for flexible post-consumer packaging. With our voluntary extended producer responsibility program, consumer goods companies contract Greenback to pay collectors and sorters to deliver previously worthless plastic [scrap] in exchange for neutralization certificates.”

Greenback is using microwave-induced technology provided by United Kingdom-based Enval designed to convert flexible packaging plastics into pyrolysis oil that can be used as recycled content in new food packaging. The process also allows for the recycling of aluminum found in such multilayered flexible packaging.

“We are proud of this partnership," von Stauffenberg says of working with Nestlé Mexico. "We know that only by working together across the value chain, we can achieve a real circular economy that contributes to the health, safety and livelihoods of the local communities.”

“We are very proud to inaugurate this pyrolysis oil plant, which will allow us to spearhead testing new methods to handle postconsumer urban [scrap] in Mexico," Nestlé Mexico Executive President Fausto Costa adds. "It is a well-known fact that the success of packaging materials in the circular economy depends on having a solid collection, sorting and recycling infrastructure and the design of the packaging to be recycled. Today, as we partner with Greenback Recycling Technologies, we take another step in making this a reality.”

Greenback says it also is supported in the project by the Singapore-based Alliance to End Plastic Waste, which focuses on advancing and scaling solutions for circularity of plastics worldwide.

“The Greenback team has been able to conceptualize a modular solution that can be co-located with landfills and material recovery facilities to tackle complex and hard-to-recycle, flexible materials,” says Natalie Stirling-Sanders, chief advisor to the Alliance to End Plastic Waste.

“It is the combination that is most exciting to us, as we are looking to find solutions that drive plastics circularity and have the potential to be replicated,“ explains

Greenback says it is using a circularity platform it developed that collects data such as origins and amounts of processed material. The platform can then provide certification on proof of origin and circularity for brands and consumer packaged goods producers.