Ineos Styrolution announces first supermarket yoghurt cups from mechanically recycled polystyrene

INEOS Styrolution, the world’s leading styrenics company, has announced the successful completion of its first mechanically recycled polystyrene yoghurt cup project. This milestone achievement was made possible by the collaborative efforts of multiple partners across the value chain.

The mechanical recycling process for polystyrene consists of multiple steps, from sorting (deep NIR sorting, including object recognition) to hot washing and flake sorting, to melt filtration and pelletizing.

The key to the process is INEOS Styrolution’s ‘Ultra Clean Process’, which has been registered as a new technology under EU Regulation 2022/1616. With this process, INEOS Styrolution achieves food contact quality recycled material, which was previously only known from PET bottle recycled material.

The recycled material has the same physical properties as conventionally produced polystyrene, enabling a perfect circular solution. Strict quality controls were applied to both the material and the cup. In addition, the EFSA assessment of this new technology required a detailed analysis. In addition, the environmental impact of the recycled material is significantly lower than that of conventionally produced material.

Lena Lembach, Advanced Packaging Development at Unternehmensgruppe Theo Müller, and Dr. Frank Eisenträger, Eco & Market Development Manager at INEOS Styrolution, presented the new technology at the "Dresdner Verpackungstage".

Dr. Frank Eisenträger: "Polystyrene has become the leading player among recycled food contact materials. It will enable producers to meet the new requirements for packaging and packaging waste under the new EU directive PPWR."

Lena Lembach: "This is a milestone achievement on our common path to achieving perfect circularity for polystyrene cups, meeting the PPWR requirements and our own CO2 reduction targets."