Recycling solutions for plastic packaging in Norway

There are not enough recycling solutions for plastic packaging in Norway up to now. FuturePack project was developed by Grønt Punkt Norge to contribute reaching Norway´s ambitious targets of increasing material recycling and received funding from the Research Council of Norway.

The action started through a seven weeks campaign where rigid plastics packaging waste from households was collected and addressed to recycling facilities.

In the process, plastics products are finely sorted, washed, shredded, and converted to plastics raw materials (granulates), which are melt and employed in industrial plastic operations.

The innovation implies a significant reduction of CO2 emissions thanks to a combined use of biomass and waste plastics, versus the conventional way of using fossil resources only for producing Polyethylene (PE) and Polypropylene (PP).

The process starts with the collection of used plastics from households and industry. This is combined with Norwegian biomass waste (wood and straw) supplied by farmers.

The type of feedstocks applied in the process are: 1) wood biomass, 2) straw biomass and 3) polyolefin plastic waste. Forest-based feedstock has the best availability for industrial use, while marine raw materials are not recommended for this process.

It is innovative to produce PE and PP from a combination of biomass and plastic waste, while contributing to reduce dependence of fossil materials.