The compounds offers natural-coloured polymer products that covers all the manufacturing needs for blow-moulded bottles and heavy-duty containers for household and industrial liquids, with a guarantee of 25% or 50% minimum Post Consumer Recyclate (PCR).
The firm’s initial production capacity of HDPE Circular Compounds amounts to 20 kT, coming fully on stream during the course of 2017.
“Total is currently extending the applications of the recycled compounds concept by developing additional new grades, since we believe it will be essential to place the European virgin plastics industry in a new yet essential role as ‘circularity enhancer’,” said Jean Viallefont, Total’s Vice President Polymers for Europe said.
The composition and manufacturing process of these compounds is mainly designed to minimise their environmental footprint, while ensuring outstanding performance and processing properties.
The recycled content comes from post-consumer household waste collected in Western European nations and is recycled by selected partners chosen by Total. Total applies a last deep decontamination step at its Antwerp plant, which transforms the PCR into an absolute fragrance-free resin.
Finally, the PCR is compounded in Total’s plant with highly technological HDPE virgin products, specifically designed and produced as intermediate resins in order to overcompensate for any lack of performance and consistency of the PCR. The resulting compounds are meant to be fully equivalent to any virgin resin sold in the same application.
Total believes that the innovative concept of high performance Circular Compounds allows the recycling industry and the virgin resin industry to open up new markets for high-quality recycled polymers. Total aims to enable downstream industries to rely on recycled materials.
