The Gneuss MRS Recycling Process approved worldwide for food packaging

The Gneuss MRS Recycling Process has been approved worldwide for food packaging, including in Europe where it has passed the EFSA challenge test for the processing of 100 per cent post-consumer PET.

This approval is for the Gneuss PET process for recycling PET post-consumer and post-industrial waste to sheet for thermoforming to food contact containers, a significant contribution toward increasing polymer recycling.

A study by the British charity for promoting recycling, “Waste and Resources Action Programme” (WRAP) in 2016 showed that with the help of the Gneuss Recycling Process, it was possible to take post–consumer thermoformed PET pots, tubs and trays from household waste and recycle them back into the same products, for food contact.

Odours are also efficiently removed from washed PET scrap without the need for pre-drying or any other heat treatment of the material prior to extrusion. This saves investment and energy costs and a whole inflexible process is eliminated, together with the risk of damage to the material.

In Latin America, the process has achieved the standards set by the Colombian food safety agency, Invima and its Argentinian counterpart, Senasa for processing 100 per cent post-consumer PET waste to food contact products and this year, Gneuss obtained food contact approval from Anvisa, the first-ever in Brazil.