BP&R caught up with Michael Cunningham, CEO of Polymer Matters, to highlight the recent collaboration with Lindner Washtech and EREMA. This has enabled the company to achieve Advanced Novel Technology status to use rHDPE in food contact packing in Europe.
polymers matter
[GD] How did Polymer Matters come about, and with what goal in mind?
[MC] We’ve been in the dairy industry for several generations. My father set up a dairy, Strathroy, back in the early 80s to pasteurise his own herd’s milk and sell it to local shops. This has grown over the years, allowing us to purchase milk from farmers across Ireland, process it and supply liquid milk and dairy products to customers throughout all 32 counties.
15 years ago, we installed blow moulders in the dairy so we could buy virgin plastics and blow-mould our own bottles. We noticed a growing push to incorporate recycled material content into the bottles and realised that, to get the quality we were after, we had to do it ourselves. In 2004, we acquired a waste management business, which provided recycling services to local councils and the commercial sector. This has evolved over the years, along with our knowledge of the sector, particularly in recycled plastic. Polymer Matters was established in 2023, and the plant opened in June 2024 with the aim of producing top-quality, food-grade rHDPE, with Strathroy Dairy being the first beneficiary.
[GD] Why did you choose Lindner Washtech and EREMA as your partners?
[MC] We chose Lindner Washtech because of its long and proven track record in the waste recycling industry and its technical expertise. For extrusion, we required best-in-class technology, and EREMA was the clear choice, as its systems are also certified by US food authorities. Food-grade quality was the central objective of this project from the start, and achieving it required every process step to be precisely coordinated. This is exactly where Lindner Washtech and EREMA come in. Their technology partnership enables the close alignment of sorting, shredding, washing and extrusion, which is essential for food-grade applications and forms the basis for implementing a novel technology at an industrial scale.
[GD] Did you encounter any hurdles along the way?
[MC] The usual headaches and issues with designing, building and starting any new production facility have to be expected. However, our technology partners really embraced the project from the beginning. They understood the aim of the dairy and how it works, and were aligned on the concept of quality, which was key throughout every stage. We designed the plant together, and they supported us through every bump in the road, working with us to find solutions and continuously refine and optimise the process.
To produce and trade food-grade rHDPE freely in Europe, we had to obtain accreditation. It was a long and demanding process, but together with Lindner and EREMA, we achieved Advanced Novel Technology status. This means we can use the post-consumer recyclate we produce in our own milk bottles, placing food-grade PCR material on the market under controlled and compliant conditions.
The Advanced Novel Technology status marks a major milestone for the project. It demonstrates that mechanical recycling can deliver food-grade quality in an economically viable way on an industrial scale — even when processing post-consumer bottles such as our milk containers, which are sourced from mixed household collections. Having now reached the next stage of the Novel Technology process, we are continuously submitting production samples with the objective of securing full EFSA approval.
[GD] In terms of process, walk me through from when the bales arrive at your facility to when the food-contact HDPEs are ready for commercialisation.
[MC] The plant works around four main production stages. Stage one is what we call quality control. We source HDPE natural bales from Ireland and parts of GB. We do a full audit trail; when the bale arrives, the material is released and fed through the line. A magnet pulls out any steel, while an eddy current extracts aluminium and other non-ferrous materials. Optical sorting technology (NIR – Near-Infrared) checks the quality completely automatically and eliminates all the remaining impurities of non-food HDPEs and foreign materials. At the end of stage one, we have the required feedstock quality.
Stage two is when the material enters the Lindner Washtech line. The flakes are fed into the Lindner Micromat shredder and cut to 60 mm. They are pre-washed to ensure any stones, metals and aluminium are eliminated, and the flakes are once again reduced in size by a granulator. The material then passes through the Lindner Hot-Wash system. This is a key component of the overall washing process where caustic, detergent and anti-foaming agent are applied under controlled conditions to eliminate organic residues and dirt, preparing the flakes for subsequent food-contact processing.
Stage three involves the EREMA extrusion process. The material must be decontaminated and filtered to achieve a high-quality resin of up to 100 % PCR content for the milk bottles. EREMA installed an Intarema 2018 TVEplus RegrindPro machine, including an EREMA Laserfilter, to decontaminate the washed milk bottles coming from the post-consumer stream, as well as an EREMA ReFresher to further decontaminate the pellets. Stage 4 involves a water treatment.
[GD] What’s next for Polymer Matters?
[MC] We are now focused on ramping up production and increasing the volume of food-contact-approved rHDPE used by the market. Achieving Advanced Novel Technology status at an industrial scale of 2.5 t/hr was a decisive breakthrough. To our knowledge, it positions us among the first to operate at this level globally. This enables us to produce our milk bottles using post-consumer recyclate in line with food-grade requirements.
The next step on our map is securing full EFSA approval for the process. The plastics sector is challenging right now, but we’re committed to the circular economy. Supermarkets and our end users also share this commitment. I hope policies will be put in place should the price of virgin plastics continue to trend downwards. I also hope GB and EU countries will demand the use of recycled content – the product and technology are there; we just need to follow through.