One of the most crucial obstacles to plastic food packaging recycling is contamination. In plastic recycling, contaminants can reduce the quality of the finalized product, but also, during plastic collection and storage, contaminated plastics are likely to have sanitary issues.

The UK government-funded Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has been conducting researches on improving the cleaning efficiency of heavier contaminants and investigating ink removal from used PP packaging.

“This has been technically challenging to date but I believe a huge amount has been learned that will benefit the industry going forward. We always knew this project would come up against hurdles, as it has never been attempted before. But the global benefits if we can crack it, and I believe we can, are huge,” said Paul Davidson, Head of Sector Specialists at WRAP.

(Source: Food-grade PP recycling moves closer, says WRAP [Food Production Daily])