Grapevine, Texas — Nova Chemicals Corp., a virgin polyethylene producer, started a journey five years ago to do more on the mechanical recycling side of the industry.
To do that, it collaborated with other companies that could either offer support or experience.
Calgary-based Nova wanted to get into the mechanical recycling sector after comparing all the different alternatives based on carbon footprint, cost to implement, cost of operating and value to customers.
"The reason why we're leaning heavily into mechanical recycling is because the technology that exists today is ready ... to be put into the most stringent of applications that our customers play a role in," said Alan Schrob, director of mechanical recycling at Nova, during the Plastics Recycling Conference in Grapevine. "Whether that's [in] e-commerce applications or heavy-duty shipping sacks or even food-contact applications."
Nova recently announced its first recycling facility in Carmel, Ind., to produce recycled polyethylene. Nova partnered with Novolex Holdings Inc., a film manufacturer that has two recycling facilities.
The companies share a collaborative customer-supplier relationship, so when Nova wanted to start investing and operating recycling facilities, it was a natural conversation to have.
"It's a collaboration; it's a partnership. We will run the facility, and it's our employees in the facility. Nova will own the facility, and we will produce the PCR [post-consumer resin] for them to sell," said Adrianne Tipton, chief technology officer for Novolex.
In another collaboration, Nova is working with customer Amcor plc's flexibles business, a producer of packaging for food, beverage and health care markets. Amcor is looking to incorporate more recycled materials into its products, and Nova plans to support this process.
"When Nova announced that they were getting into this business, we were really excited because not only their attention to detail on the quality from their resin side we feel that's going to carry through," said Brain Carvill, vice president of research and development at Amcor, "but also with their material expertise, we feel that there's some things they can do with a process that can give us better properties in the PCR."
Lastly, Nova is also forming a relationship with McCain Foods, a producer of frozen french fries and prepared foods. McCain Foods wants its packaging to be 10 percent recyclable by 2025 and reduce emissions and protect natural resources and raw materials.
"We want to include more recycled content, [but] there are some challenges," said Adriana Wolff, global senior manager for sustainable and circular packaging at McCain Foods. "We know we cannot do it just working by ourselves. We need our partners, we need our competitors, we need the system to work."
McCain believed the best way to reach this target was to start focusing on mechanical recycling, Wolff noted. Nova saw the opportunity to take its materials and incorporate them into the products of McCain to become a fully circular company. This collaboration started two years ago; the project is still in process.
The companies also discussed how to collect materials from customers that are in foodservice industry and get them back to Nova to produce more PCR content.
"It's been fun collaborating with the entire panel here on all of those applications," Schrob said.