July 2023

Plastic outnumbers sea life by six to one right now. In other words, every single square mile of ocean contains around 46,000 pieces of plastic, most of which can take anywhere between a few decades to a few centuries to completely decompose. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that more than $100 billion are lost annually in sorting and processing plastic packaging waste. In India, where the journey of plastic began in earnest in the late 1950s, the consumption of plastic packaging has grown by 200 per cent in the last 10 years.

The cardboard milk carton is a well-known classic in several countries and while the packaging has undergone several transformations over the years and is now a near-optimal choice in terms of food safety and sustainability, the time has come to completely rethink a small yet significant part; the cap.

Pot Noodle, the UK’s biggest instant hot snack brand,  is trialling a new recyclable paper pot,  made with FSC-certified paper. This is the most significant innovation to the brand’s iconic pot since it launched almost half a century ago.

The new paper pot has launched exclusively in retailer Tesco, with an initial stock of 500,000 of the brand’s most popular flavour, Chicken & Mushroom.

Mix of polyelectrolytes

Australians return 1.3 million pieces of soft plastic per day to REDCycle recycling bins but wrappers, cling wraps and plastic bags have been a problematic plastic to recycle.

With new legislation to phase out soft plastic exports taking effect only last week, this project highlights an innovative solution to the problem.

But an RMIT team of engineers have partnered with Victorian recycling organisations Replas, RED Group and SR Engineering to develop a concrete material made from lightweight recycled plastic.

Hilex®, a Novolex® brand, announced today new options for its popular ProWAVE® Tote, a recyclable, reusable tote bag that simplifies deliveries and carry-out for supermarkets, restaurants, retailers and their customers.

Customers can now choose a ProWAVE Tote that features a 2.25-mil gauge film that’s manufactured with a minimum of 40% post-consumer recycled material — attributes that allow the totes to meet most legislative requirements for reusable bags, including those in California. Customers also can now opt for a ProWAVE Tote made with 1.7-mil gauge film.

Originally developed as a solution for non-contact 3D inspection of chocolate moulds in the confectionery industry, the MQCS demonstrated its versatility to be adapted for other applications such as “right product/right packaging” code matching, counting and aggregation of varied packages, monitoring the cycle life of materials handling equipment, and other 3D inspection and measurement tasks in the food industry.