Green REcyclable Tanks made of innovative resin rilene

Project Information

GRETA

Grant agreement ID: 741668

DOI

10.3030/741668

Project closed

EC signature date 28 November 2016

Start date 1 December 2016

End date 31 May 2017

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Climate action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

ECOPLEN SRL
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - GRETA (Green REcyclable Tanks made of innovative resin rilene)

Reporting period: 2016-12-01 to 2017-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

GRETA project addresses important socio-economic problems linked to the recovery, collection and recycling of plastics waste and emissions of CO2, which have many adverse effects on environment and health. This problem is tackled also by current international policies and legislation: the unsustainable use of natural resources is a global issue, and the GRETA project is established to give a response to the global need of an increased ‘resource efficiency’ through the availability of a sustainable, cost efficient and reliable way to develop rigid packaging goods of high quality containing a high share of recycled plastics.
A cultural change connected to the ‘green’ philosophy, started in the second half of ‘90s, led to the identification of an important group of consumers who are sensitive to sustainability and to environmental topics. In addition to quality and price, the intrinsic environmental performances respected (the green aspect) contribute to the assignment of a “premium price” to the end product. GRETA project pushes this direction thanks to the megatrend identified: more and more people are attracted by products with a green connotation and appeal, towards a “circular economy” approach, reducing the impacts on the whole ecosystem of an excessive and unnecessary use of non-renewable resources. ECOPLEN three layered products fall in this category: further than being the same quality and containing the 70% of recycled material, they are entirely recyclable, and cost less than concurrent products from virgin material.

The project brings important benefits for society in terms of increased recovery, collection and recycling of plastics waste and reduction of CO2 emissions. These benefits will bring consequently also positive effects on environment and health. Fewer emissions on the atmosphere and less plastic waste will reduce risks to health, enhance the well-being of society and reduce the cost for plastic waste treatment.
The innovation contributes reducing the environmental impact and greenhouse emissions, thanks to a reduction in quantity of plastic waste disposed in landfills, and to the dependence from oil as a raw material for the industry of the polyethylene polymer. The tanks made of RILENE can help reducing the market share of virgin plastic tanks, which are more dangerous for environment and are often non-recyclable. The virtuous cycle generated by the production and sales of the tanks has also the benefit to reduce the dependence of the European market from the multinational companies that monopolize the production of virgin polymers. The tank GRETA, thanks to its properties, finally achieves the goals of a complete circular economy in the plastic packaging industry, which shall result in a greening of its products and processes.

The objective of the feasibility study implemented in Phase 1 was to address the future activities, business plans and communication actions to ensure a real market success to the new products (bottles and tanks) obtained out of the RILENE intermediate through blow moulding. This is achieved through the availability of the RILENE material as exclusive use from the ECODESIGN company, the technical tests in own labs, and the active cooperation of Kautex in the set-up of the process led to the unique position of ECOPLEN, towards a market success.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

As foreseen, during the GRETA project a feasibility study was performed in four fields:

- Market analysis: actions comprised SWOT assessment, market and final users’ identification (market barriers and measures to overcome them, market trends, detailed analysis of competitors (market shares, strengths & weaknesses, etc.), identification of possible commercial partners and networks;
- IPR: an effective IP strategy is designed, mostly related to the patenting of the process necessary to produce the RILENE, the resin used to produce the tank;
- Technical/regulatory issues: focused on regulatory and legal issues, technical standards to be respected, environmental issues and the strategy for the future developments and customization of the tank.
- Business plan: Strategic analysis including a pricing/selling strategy, risk assessment, contingency plans, organisational strategies (resources and equipment needs, expertise required, bottleneck identification and overcoming, etc.), Economic and financial scenarios, fund-raising strategy turnover, cash flow, operating costs, balance sheet, possible funding channels (ie: risk finance), draft sensitiveness analysis, return on investment.

The following technical results can be claimed for the feasibility study, in each the fouranalysed fields:

- Market Analysis: the sector of recycled plastic is in a period of high growth. Different potential partners, players and cooperation patterns are identified, through online databases, and their volumes of operations and the accessible business volume for ECOPLEN is estimated accordingly
- IPR Strategy: the study demonstrated the patentability of a three layers tank
- Technical and regulatory issues: the complex of national Green Public Procurement measures favours products like the tank GRETA, which is completely green. We can expect that the further implementation of these laws and other new in the years to come will open new business opportunities and create a significant growth of turnover as a result of the growing rates of green public procurement in Europe.
- Business plan is strategically defined, identifying the core elements of advantage and the benefits associated to ECOPLEN in reaching the market. Data are crossed with the Market in order to drive the development on the relevant business volume and the funding target in order to grant the maximum advantages
Main results

As a main conclusion, ECOPLEN idea to develop business out of three layered blow moulded tank, with a central layer (more than 70% by weight) entirely recycled, resulted to be feasible in all the fields and udner all points of view. Additionally, the study performed allowed understanding the current progress and next steps to bring the innovation to the market, orienting the development towards a SME Instrument Phase 2 project, on which the clearly identified partnerships and customers relations are to be deployed to maximize the revenues and strategic positioning for ECOPLEN.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

a) Progress beyond the state of the art

The continuous strong growth expected in the production and use of plastic packaging is accompanied by negative factors, concerning mainly health and environment aspects. All these factors together are driving through the concept and the necessity of a new plastics economy, where stakeholders are already acting to rethink the plastic packaging sector, based on the philosophy of the circular economy applied to the plastic industry: this is identified as a strong and well defined megatrend that the distinctive element of RILENE three layered products can address and satisfy fully.

The tank GRETA is in fact going beyond the state of the art thanks to the use of the innovative technology of RILENE, a resin coming from the regeneration of polyethylene plastic waste deriving from agricultural, industrial and domestic garbage that can be fully recycled at the end of its life cycle. This innovation fully meets the achievements of a complete circular economy in the plastic packaging industry, overcoming the results today achieved by several companies that are playing in the scenario.

b) Potential impact

Today, 95% of plastic packaging material ($80–120 billion annually) is lost to the economy after a short first use. Only 14% of plastic packaging is collected for recycling. When additional value losses in sorting and reprocessing are factored in, only 5% of material value is retained for a subsequent use.

Plastics are mostly recycled into lower-value applications that are not again recyclable after use. The recycling rate for plastics in general is even lower than for plastic packaging, and both are far below the global rates for paper (58%) and iron and steel (70–90%). PET, used in beverage bottles, has a higher recycling rate than any other type of plastic, but still a modest one: globally, close to half of PET is not collected for recycling, and only 7% is recycled bottle-to-bottle. In addition, plastic packaging is almost exclusively single-use, especially in B2C applications. A total of 72% of plastic packaging is not recovered: 40% is landfilled and an impressive 32% leaked to the environment.

GRETA addresses the objectives to move the plastics value chain into a positive spiral of value capture, stronger economics and better environmental outcomes. In fact, the project revealed that the innovation will have a strong impact in terms of improvement of recycling processes, through a better Post Consumer Recovery (PCR) and the capability to design packaging products able to be fully recyclable. The tank with RILENE represents a breakthrough technology able to give a decisive contribute to the process for the definition of a circular plastic economy, thanks to the utilization of above 70% of PCR HDPE for their tanks, that are fully recyclable.

Picture of the tank