Total released a major release: white paper on recyclability of polylactic acid
Recently, Total Energies Corbion released a white paper on the recyclability of PLA bioplastics. Titled "Staying in the loop, rethinking the recycling of PLA bioplastics".
The white paper summarizes the current PLA recycling market, regulations and technologies. It provides a comprehensive outlook and vision that recycling of PLA is feasible, economically viable, and universally applicable as an end-of-life solution for PLA bioplastics.
The white paper shows that PLA's ability to depolymerize via hydrolysis to regenerate the exact same PLA resin makes it a circular material. The new recycled PLA maintains the same quality and food contact approval. Luminy rPLA grades contain 20% or 30% recycled content from blends of post-consumer and post-industrial recycled PLA, third-party certified by SCS Global Services.
Luminy rPLA contributes to the EU's growing recycling targets for plastic packaging waste, as outlined in the forthcoming revision of the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (PPWD).
Reusing and recycling plastic responsibly is critical. It comes from the continued relevance of plastics in everyday applications, for example in food hygiene, medical applications and industrial components. The white paper provides real-world examples, such as Sansu, a South Korean bottled water supplier, who used their existing logistics infrastructure to create a system for recycling used PLA bottles that were sent to the TotalEnergies Corbion recycling plant for recycling.
Gerrit Gobius du Sart, scientist at TotalEnergies Corbion, said: "Valuating PLA waste as a feedstock for chemical or mechanical recycling is a huge opportunity. Bridging the gap between current inadequate recycling rates and upcoming EU ambitious targets will mean Phasing out the linear use of plastics through reduction, reuse, recycling and material recovery. Shifting from the use of fossil carbon to the use of biological resources is critical for plastic production, and PLA comes from sustainable natural resources with considerable ecological benefits."
