VARIFORM

Objectives

The VARIfORM project is part of an ambitious research programme focused on reusing plastic waste through multiphase plastic recycling. To meet this major challenge, which is a society-wide issue for sustainable development, the Charles Sadron Institute (ICS) has teamed up with IPC.

Flexible plastic food packaging can contain up to five layers of polymers of different chemical nature to meet all the product’s specifications. The end-of-life waste from this source takes the form of blends of incompatible polymers with very different viscosities.  Over 75% of this short-life food packaging waste is currently either incinerated or landfilled. The VARIfORM is part of a vision for a circular economy and aims to develop a new strategy for the in-situ synthesis of universal compatibilising agents devoted to recycling flexible food-grade plastic packaging waste. This approach is perfectly in line with national and European commitments to move towards 100% recycled plastics by 2025.

With this in mind, the aim is to develop an innovative compatibilisation and mixing process, based on elongational flow, in order to:

• reduce energy consumption, shear and thermomechanical degradation;
• achieve a fine dispersion and homogeneous distribution of the mixture’s constituents;
• convert mixed plastic waste into new, recycled raw materials.

Challenges

• Recovering plastic waste from flexible food packaging by implementing new formulations of recycling raw materials with properties that are stable and competitive with virgin materials.
• The development of an innovative process for recycling mixed polymers, compatible both with the demanding morphologies required and with industrial production capacity.
• Strengthening the competitiveness of the French plastics industry in the field of eco-technologies.

Project funded by:

Partenaires

IPC • Institut Charles Sadron