Major investment in circular plastic packaging in the construction industry

Plastic packaging has an important purpose in the construction industry. It protects goods and keeps them in place. But what happens to the plastic when the products are unpacked?

In order to take good care of thin, high-quality plastic packaging, the Swedish CirEm step 2 project is now being started. CirEm stands for circular plastic packaging. CirEm stage 2 started with a meeting with all project parties in September 2020 and runs until the summer of 2022. It is a continuation project from a feasibility study conducted in 2019. The study showed that there is a clear potential for developing a circular system for plastic packaging.

- We at Optimera see this project as very important. We see that plastic packaging creates a lot of waste and if we can be involved, and exert influence, so that old plastic packaging can be returned to the manufacturer and become new plastic products, so it will be a big step towards a better environment, says Henrik Björk, Assortment Manager at Optimera.

15 Swedish companies will now collaborate to develop and test an efficient collection and recycling system for plastic packaging from the construction industry.

- CirEm as a project is timely, especially now the new collection requirements for construction and demolition waste came into force on 1 August 2020. In order to speed up the sorting of plastic, we must be able to show that the material is useful and really becomes new products, says Marianne Hedberg at Byggföretagen.

During the continuation project, the participants will, among other things, carry out a number of fundraisers with plastic packaging. The collection points will be selected to show a breadth of different workplaces and their different challenges. During the project, various recycling alternatives will be tested and evaluated to see which method is best suited and which products can be created from the recycled plastic. The project will also produce proposals and test various logistics solutions, as well as develop circular business models.

- As we have extensive experience of producing products from recycled materials, we look forward to being able to contribute as participants in CirEm step 2 to increase the collected volumes in a circular system for plastic packaging together with the other parties, says Magdalena Bengtsson at Trioplast AB .

- In September, Trioplast launched a newly developed stretch film with 75 % recycled plastic, of which at least 51 % is PCR (post-consumer recycle)

Parties in the project are NCC, JM, Beijer Byggmaterial, Optimera, Polyplank, Castellum, Wingårdhs, Trioplast, Cargospace24, Bewi Synbra Circular, Byggföretagen, Ragn-sells, Kretslopp och Recycling i Sverige and Rise IVF. The project is led by Chalmers Industriteknik and funded by the research program Re: source.