NextLife’s post-consumer recycled resins have been approved by Health Canada to be used in the manufacture of plastics products that come in contact with food.
NextLife’s recycled polypropylene (PP) and recycled polystyrene (PS) resins can be used in thermoformed or injection-molded articles made for food products. This is the first time Canada has approved the use of post-consumer recycled resins for use in food packaging products, NextLife said.
NextLife resins, which are approved for up to 100 percent recycled content, have comparable performance qualities to virgin PP and PS and have wide consumer applications, the company said.
The Canadian approval will help NextLife expand its target market and meet its growth strategy, which is partly based on securing approvals in different markets around the globe, NextLife CEO Ronald Whaley said.
In March, packaging company Havi Global and sustainable plastic resin manufacturer NextLife partnered to produce the first post-consumer recycled resins to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for use in the restaurant industry.
The approved PCR resins, which include FDA-approved polypropylene, polystyrene and polyethylene blends, can be tailored to specific restaurant chain needs and used to replace virgin resins in the manufacturing of plastic products with food contact.
Using recycled plastic resins at high-traffic restaurant chains has the potential to save more than 500,000 barrels of oil annually for every 100 million pounds of recycled resins produced, Havi said at the time of the partnership announcement.