The partnership will produce products like buckets, wash bowls and water scoops using raw materials from value chains that collect plastic waste and transform them
The collaboration will produce products like buckets, wash bowls and water scoops. (Credit: UPM)
Sustainable labelling provider UPM Raflatac has partnered with plastic products maker Orthex to produce household products and their labelling using recycled plastic saved from ending up as marine litter.
The initiative will produce products like buckets, wash bowls and water scoops using raw materials from value chains that collect plastic waste and transform them.
Both the Finnish firm are part of those chains.
Orthex is part of a value chain that creates raw materials from recycled plastic by collecting used fishing nets and ropes from harbours in Scandinavia, the UK, and Northern Europe.
According to the labelling firm, the collected material is sorted, cleaned, shredded, and extruded into raw material pellets to produce Orthex’s bucket, bowl, and scoop products.
Compared to virgin plastic, the raw material has up to 94% reduced carbon emissions, UPM said.
Orthex CEO Alexander Rosenlew said: “To produce household products from recycled materials requires a great amount of expertise and collaboration in the value chain.
“By collaborating with UPM Raflatac, we can have even the product labels made from recycled ocean-bound plastic. This is the icing on the cake, making our products even more sustainable.”
UPM Raflatac deals with multiple partners in the value chain to produce the Ocean Action labels. The Ocean Action label materials are the first label materials made from ocean-bound plastic waste.
The first step in the value chain is where HHI, a Malaysian plastic recycling business, gathers and classifies ocean-bound plastic waste with its partners. The firm then transforms the garbage into pyrolysis oil through chemical recycling.
UPM Raflatac business development manager Eliisa Laurikainen said: “Orthex’s products made of old fishing nets are the perfect match for our Ocean Action labels.
“The combination is a concrete example of how we can create new products from recycled raw materials with close collaboration and some ingenuity within the value chain.”