> CIRCPACK, Veolia’s own packaging consultancy team, supports brand owners and manufacturers on their recycling journeys; crucial as the UK prepares for the upcoming Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation.
> Working collaboratively across the industry, CIRCPACK recently supported the JOZO Salt Collection on their way to an award-recognised package.
JOZO’s Journey
The JOZO Salt collection dates all the way back to 1929, beginning in Boekelo, Netherlands before expanding across the Nordic countries in the 1960s. Their iconic packaging posed a problem for household recycling bins though, made up of multiple components and materials including a cardboard and aluminium tube, a Polyethylene (PE) plastic base and polystyrene (PS) cap.
Determined to make their packaging fully recyclable, JOZO reached out to SFA packaging and together, they transformed a tricky-to-recycle container into a mono-material shaker made from Polypropylene (PP) which can be recycled into pellets to be used to make new plastic packaging.
Taking their innovative sustainability goals one step further, they partnered with MCC Verstraete to incorporate NextCycle IML™ (In Mold Labelling) into their design to ensure the look and feel of the shaker not only matched their brand but met the highest recycling standards.
Testing for Success
To attain RecyClass’s Design for Recycling (DfR) certification, the team behind JOZO’s new salt shaker reached out to Veolia’s CIRCPACK team.
As a global resource management company, Veolia has both the expertise and resources to provide customers such as JOZO with meticulous testing to ensure compliance. Utilising one of our own Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs), the CIRCPACK team carried out operational tests to see how the new salt shaker acted in a real-world setting. They studied the percentage of samples that ended up in the required rigid plastic material stream after sorting to ensure it would be sent on for further processing to become recycled Polypropylene (rPP).
We were also able to confirm MCC's NextCycle IML™ labels would separate from the packaging prior to PP reprocessing, allowing us to award JOZO’s packaging a class B RecyClass Recyclability score (the score can range from class A to class F).
That JOZO’s new salt shakers received a nomination at the world’s most competitive packaging innovation contest, De Gouden Noot 2024, is a testament to their dedication to aligning recyclability with innovative design. MCC’s use of NextCycle IML™ on this particular packaging also went on to win the ‘Product Technology Innovation of the Year’ at the Plastics Recycling Awards Europe 2024.
“It’s been a process of continuous improvement for us, working together with various partners that have advised us how we can better design and develop a packaging material that is taking the right steps towards the requirements for the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (PPWD) 2030.”
The JOZO Team
"As we’re paving the road to a circular economy for plastic packaging, DfR guidelines and Recyclass’ classification requirements will continue to grow stricter. Going mono-material was a giant step forward for JOZO’s salt shakers and decorating the packaging with NextCycle IML™ labels, supports the future availability of high-purity Recycled Polypropylene Resins (rPP)."
The CIRCPACK Team
Along with RecyClass’s evolving testing, the UK is preparing for the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme. Initially introduced as part of the Government's wider Resources and Waste Strategy, the scheme introduces a responsibility for producers to pay the full costs of managing and recycling the packaging waste arising from products they place on the market. This will in turn place more recycled material back into the value chain by ensuring that packaging is designed to be reused, repaired or recycled.
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