This delivery of UPR resin will allow Milliken to trial the industry’s first fully sustainable concentrate for polypropylene.
PureCycle makes first commercial shipment to Milliken to advance sustainability
PureCycle Technologies has sent out a commercial shipment of Ultra-Pure Recycled (“UPR”) resin to Milliken & Company, a diversified manufacturer with expertise in polymer additive and colorant technology. This delivery of UPR resin will allow Milliken to trial the industry’s first fully sustainable concentrate for polypropylene (“PP”).
Last year, PureCycle and Milliken announced the new sustainable, odorless concentrate for PP at the K Show in Düsseldorf, the world’s largest trade fair for the plastics industry. Typically, even fully recycled products are stabilized with traditional additive packages built with fossil-based PP, leaving the final consumer product blend with less than 100% recycled polyolefin content. This Milliken-designed concentrate will allow consumers to be confident that their products can be made with 100% recycled polyolefins. As an added benefit, customers and brand owners using the concentrate may be able to obtain certified energy savings and carbon emission reductions compared to traditional methods.
PureCycle CEO Dustin Olson said, “As the world continues to seek more recycled content in their products and packaging, this concentrate will allow businesses to deliver fully circular solutions to their consumers. Our technical partnership with Milliken will help make that happen.” Olson added, “We continue to work in lockstep with their team, and I look forward to growing this consumer solution with them.”
Wim Van de Velde, global vice president of plastics additives for Milliken, said, “We understand all of the hard work that’s been put into the facility in Ironton, and it is incredibly exciting to have a shipment of UPR resin on the way. We know that this concentrate will enable the production of 100% recycled content consumer goods. It makes using recycled polypropylene an attractive, no-compromise option as it can be used in various applications and provides them the same high quality as virgin PP and has crystal clear clarity.”
In addition to quality and clarity, PureCycle’s recycling process uses less energy and releases fewer carbon emissions than virgin plastic production. Using pre-production modeling data from the commercial facility design, an independent Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) found that PureCycle’s process could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 35% and utilize approximately 80% less energy when compared to fossil-fuel-derived polypropylene manufacturing.
