FEDER - ISPA-E - REACT PROJECT
Kohesio
ISPA ENTREPRISES
The unique properties of plastics explain the extent of their use in food packaging. They are light, which ensures reduced transport costs and lower CO2 emissions. They are transparent and custom trainable, which offers unparalleled marketing opportunities. But above all, through their barrier effect, they protect foods from oxygen and water which can quickly alter their quality or even make them dangerous for consumption. The use of plastic in packaging has thus largely contributed to reducing food waste, to curbing health problems relating to the food trade and to fighting against famine and malnutrition. The packaging industry, a victim of its success, consumes nearly 40% of plastic materials, the majority of which is used for food packaging. In France, each year, more than a million tonnes of plastic materials are used and placed on the market for household and food packaging. Unfortunately, a large part of these plastics are only used for their initial function (e.g. ham trays) and are neither reused nor recycled. Thus, 44% of French plastic waste is incinerated, and 34% is buried in landfills. Only 22% are recycled, mainly PET bottles. The low recycling rate of these consumer products is linked to the fact that only plastics isolated from others are recyclable. For example, a few percent by mass of PP in a volume of PET makes it impossible to recycle the latter. This is why efficient sorting of household plastics is essential to ensure the value chain of these materials. However, the vast majority of plastic packaging consists of co-extruded or laminated multilayers using different types of resin, each providing one or more specific properties. Alongside recycling, a second alternative to the treatment of plastic waste is the use of biodegradable, or even compostable, packaging for short-life applications, in the concept of Circular Economy and with the opportunity to overcome the difficulty relating to the multi-material nature of packaging. multilayers.To date, there is no high-performance recyclable or compostable food packaging. It is therefore urgent, in the interests of sustainable development, to design eco-responsible food packaging materials that are recyclable or compostable, or even both at the same time. The Normandy region, with the strong presence of academic and industrial players covering the entire value chain concerned (formulation and compounding of new materials, implementation of manufactured products, recycling and/or composting), appears ideally placed to develop this new job-creating sector, while improving eco-design of products and sustainable management of raw materials. Current societal challenges, which are the scarcity of resources and the end-of-life management of materials, must indeed make the development of materials from renewable resources a priority research axis at the heart of territorial challenges for transitions and sustainable development. The REACT project brings together a packaging manufacturer (B+K), a technology supplier (Polytechs), three research laboratories (UniRouen PBS), UniLaSalle UTA and ISPA), a technical center (IPC) and a CRT (Praxens). The project will lead to the creation of 10 direct jobs at the end of the project and several dozen over the next 3/5 years. REACT will be a pilot project for the creation of a regional sector intended to be duplicated on a national/European scale. Duplicating the Normandy sector on a national scale could lead to a reduction in CO2 emissions of around 1.7 Mt per year.
Smarter Europe / Research and innovation / Research and innovation activities in private research centres including networking