Recycled content HPDE containers

Nampak maintains its edge on leading the HDPE packaging market through the inclusion of recycled HDPE into its own HDPE plastic containers.

Known as rHDPE, the first bottles with 10% rHDPE were available in 2007 in Marks & Spencer's organic milk range. Market trials have also been successfully conducted with up to 30% recycled content and, as more material becomes available, the percentage of rHDPE in milk bottles is set to rise.

The use of closed-loop recycling - where waste HDPE bottles are collected and reprocessed to enable them to be used again for HDPE bottles - is widely acknowledged to be one of the most effective forms of recycling.

The first sites to reprocess food grade HDPE opened in 2008 and during 2009, plastic milk bottles with up to 10% recycled material were available on the shelves. The dairy industry has committed to increasing the levels of recycled HDPE in milk bottles up to 30% by 2015.  This has been laid out in a document called the 'Milk Roadmap'.

More information on recycled HDPE can be found at www.bottle2bottle.com.

Packaging weight

Nampak is committed to reacting to the emphasis on packaging weight and currently produces the lightest weight HDPE milk bottles in the UK market. The company will continue to work to further reduce packaging weight without compromising the durability of the current bottle, which has enabled the delivery chain to avoid the secondary packaging required for a less sturdy container. 

Packaging in Perspective

The Industry Council for Packaging & the Environment (Incpen) has published a Packaging in Perspective document which provides the facts about the much discussed subject of packaging recovery and recycling.  It aims to provide the public and others with an outline of what the UK has achieved and what is being done.