Weekly Roundup: PepsiCo launches customer environmental support program, Amcor employs ExxonMobil’s Exxtend technology

14 Apr 2023 --- This week in industry news, PepsiCo launched pep+ Partners for Tomorrow, a platform to help its customers reach their environmental sustainability goals and Amcor placed the first commercial order of ExxonMobil’s Exxtend technology for the Australian and New Zealand markets. Meanwhile, Dow and Avery Dennison created a hotmelt label that keeps products’ recyclability intact.

In brief: Business news
PepsiCo announced pep+ Partners for Tomorrow, a new platform that delivers solutions to support its customers in achieving their environmental sustainability goals. The initial launch will focus on US customers, with plans to expand the program to key global markets by 2024. Partners for Tomorrow will bring PepsiCo’s customer environmental sustainability offerings in a single platform to deliver the most needed solutions of the company’s partners. These programs align with pep+ (PepsiCo Positive), a strategic end-to-end business transformation designed to drive long-term, environmentally sustainable business performance. The Partners for Tomorrow solution will include CIRQU (formerly Bottle Loop), reusable cup solutions, regenerative agriculture, PepsiCo’s annual North America Customer Sustainability Summit and pep+ REnew. 

Pulpac and PA partner with Sanofi and Haleon for its Bottle Collective. Displai, an augmented reality (AR) platform for product packaging, announced the launch of a partner program for the packaging and print industries. The program enables packaging and print companies to leverage Displai’s technology and expertise to enhance customer engagement capabilities and drive business growth. Displai’s technology leverages AR to enable consumers to interact with product packaging. By scanning products with a smartphone, consumers can activate “virtual experiences,” where digital content and real-world packaging fuse together to morph into a new form of packaging that seemingly comes to life. The activation also enables consumers to access product information and exclusive content and interact via the product. 

Hinojosa Packaging Group concluded 2022 with a turnover of €820 million (US$905.9 million), 27% higher than in 2021. The company says it maintained its steady growth in recent years, despite the complex global situation, with historical highs in the prices of energy and raw materials and supply problems that affected the entire value chain. It also launched a fFoodservice range –, a new 100% recyclable paper-based packaging line. 

PA Consulting (PA) and PulPac welcomed global consumer health companies Sanofi and Haleon to its Bottle Collective. Both companies will be working with the Bottle Collective to explore the feasibility and co-development of cellulose-based technologies as alternatives to virgin petroleum-based plastics for the packaging of consumer health products. The Bottle Collective aims to industrialize a recyclable high-speed, low-cost Dry Molded Fiber bottle process. This will empower the large-scale production of branded alternatives to single-use and commodity plastic bottles. PA and PulPac have already developed the first functioning prototypes.

In brief: Plastic innovations
Amcor placed its first commercial order of certified-circular polymers leveraging ExxonMobil’s Exxtend technology for advanced packaging recycling in the Australian and New Zealand market. The order makes Amcor the first packaging company to offer certified-circular plastics in this region. This follows the five-year deal supporting Amcor’s target to achieve 30% recycled material across Avery Dennison and Dow’s hotmelt labels for single stream recycling. its portfolio by 2030. The material’s volume will increase each year incrementally and is expected to reach 100,000 metric tons annually at the end of the five years.

Dow and Avery Dennison co-developed a hotmelt label adhesive solution that enables polyolefin filmic labels and PP or PE packaging to be mechanically recycled in one stream. The adhesive is the “first” on the label market and is approved by Recyclass for recycling in the high-density PE (HDPE) colored stream – Class B. Standard hotmelts reduce the usability of recycled PP and PE material. Because the companies’ olefinic hotmelt is based on the same chemistry as PP and PE packaging, when combined with a polyolefin facestock, the label and packaging can be treated as a monomaterial and recycled together. The companies state it offers better recyclability than standard hotmelts without compromising performance.

UPM Raflatac began expanding its wash-off portfolio with paper-label materials that allow for better recycling of PET and HDPE plastics. The label materials have received European certifications of recyclability from Institut cyclos-HTP for PET and HDPE packaging. The labels are a part of UPM Raflatac’s SmartCircle portfolio. The company continues that the labels allow PET and HDPE flakes to be recovered without contaminating the label materials. The flakes can be converted into new high-quality materials and used within closed-loop systems.

SABIC announced the successful roll-out of another project as part of its TruCircle program to accelerate the implementation of a circular plastic economy. Garofalo, an Italian pasta manufacturer, introduced packaging made by GT Polifilm and Polivouga using SABIC’s certified circular PP. The sustainable material is derived from advanced recycling and converted into a biaxially oriented PP film for this application, which the company claims are the “first” mono-PP pasta packaging material in the market containing 30% of post-consumer recycled content. Garofalo introduced the first pasta bags made from the new packaging to Italian stores in March 2023.

Pasta brand uses Sabic’s TruCircle program for its plastic packaging for a circular economy. In brief: Investments 
Infinity Recycling gained new investors for its Circular Plastic Fund (CPF). The new investors include Vopak Ventures B.V., Westlake Innovations, a subsidiary of Westlake Corporation and Dutch multi-family office Commenda. The Luxembourg-registered CPF has an initial target size of €150 million (US$166 million). CPF is an Article 9 “dark green” impact fund under the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation. Its investments aim to accelerate the transition to a circular plastics economy by scaling up advanced recycling technology companies that transform plastic waste streams into primary commodities to produce new plastics.

In brief: Pharma packaging 
Systech, part of Markem-Imaje and Dover, announced a series of services designed to help customers in the pharmaceutical supply chain meet Drug Supply Chain Security Act interoperability requirements by the November 27 deadline. Systech offers three new service packages with its software to help manufacturers understand how to meet the Enhanced Drug Security Requirements such as readiness gap review, compliance testing and master organizational validation. These services will address endpoint data connections, product registrations, authorized trading partner verifications and record-keeping requirements.

Kimberly-Clark Professional, a contamination control solution company for cleanrooms and laboratories, expanded its RightCycle Programme to the Netherlands and Switzerland. The RightCycle Programme is the “first” large-scale recycling effort for non-hazardous lab, cleanroom and industrial personal protective equipment waste. Originating in the US with a few scientific manufacturing customers, the program is now available in 11 countries with many customers, including universities and research institutions, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, manufacturing facilities and other businesses. 

By Sabine Waldeck