Odour contaminated plastics given second life thanks to Innovate UK grant

Technical knowledge based plastics compounder Luxus has as part of a consortium win an Innovate UK grant to develop a novel process to remove retained odour from post-consumer recycled plastics.

The aim of this new 30-month R&D project known as Odour Control, is to employ unique process technologies to deliver high value second life applications for odour contaminated plastics, that would otherwise only be adopted for limited low value markets.

Luxus will lead the project in collaboration with the University of Lincoln to provide a test house to identify and quantify odour species, while Matrix Moulding Systems will help develop the processing system design and injection moulding company One 51 will produce the finished parts.

Recycled plastics have a scent memory from contact with heavily perfumed detergents or food that creates quality issues inhibiting further use, and although some progress has been made to recycle easier post-production waste streams, the recycling of post-consumer PP and polyethylene still presents a major challenge.

Currently, under one per cent of the UK’s 260,000 tonnes of post-consumer PP waste is effectively recycled into high quality products, and the rest is used in lower value applications, or left for landfill.

Chris Kerridge, Luxus’ Project Manager, said: “We are pleased that Innovate UK has recognised the importance of developing a process that will allow for the cost-efficient reprocessing of polymer that was previously uneconomic to recover due to retained odour.”

“We aim to address this challenge by removing retained odour so that the waste polymer can be reprocessed for use in high value products in the civil engineering, automotive, horticulture and detergent packaging industries, enabling manufacturers to satisfy sustainability goals.”

“With Defra’s new Resources and Waste Strategy for England, there is also a major shift in focus now towards resources rather than wastes.”

“The aim is to help manufacturers progress to a circular economy that keeps resources in use for longer, so the need for innovative solutions for the processing of odour contaminated plastics has never been greater.”