Billions of single-use sachets are sold every year, and are extremely resource efficient, allowing low-income consumers to buy small amounts of products that would otherwise be unaffordable to them. But sachet packaging usually ends up in landfill or as litter. The new technology will turn the sachets into plastic and channel them back into the supply chain. The CreaSolv Process has been developed with the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV in Germany and is inspired by an innovation used to recycle TV sets. CreaSolv Process technology has been adapted from a method used to separate brominated flame retardants from waste electrical and electronic equipment polymers. During the process, the plastic is recovered from the sachet, and the plastic then used to create new sachets for Unilever products – creating a full circular economy approach. To tackle the industry-wide sachet waste issue, Unilever is looking to create a sustainable system change by setting up waste collection schemes to channel the sachets to be recycled. Currently Unilever is testing this by working with local waste banks, governments and retailers and will look to empower waste pickers, integrate them into the mainstream economy and to provide a potential long term income, generating wider growth in the economy. David Blanchard, Unilever chief R&D officer, said: [Billions of sachets are used once and just thrown away, all over the world, ending up in landfill or in our waterways and oceans. At the start of this year we made a commitment to help solve this problem, developing new recycling technologies. We intend to make this tech open source and would hope to scale the technology with industry partners, so others – including our competitors – can use it. [There is a clear economic case for delivering this. We know that globally $80-120bn is lost to the economy through failing to properly recycle plastics each year. Finding a solution represents a huge opportunity. We believe that our commitment to making 100% of our packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable will support the long-term growth of our business." Currently less than 15% of all plastic packaging is recycled globally, and Unilever has pledged to make 100% of packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025. Source:https://www.packagingnews.co.uk/news/environment/unilever-makes-push-for-plastic-sachet-recycling-11-05-2017