Recycling of packaging materials

Well-considered steps towards more recycling

From mushrooms and orange juice to computers: many consumer products are packaged to protect them from deterioration or damage. In the Netherlands alone, this involves gigantic amounts of packaging materials every year: approximately 1,100 kilotons of paper and cardboard, 500 kilotons of glass, 200 kilotons of metals and 450 kilotons of plastic. Measures are needed at all stages of the chain to increase the amounts of recycled materials and reduce recycling costs. Expertise is required here. For example, which collection system yields the highest return: a deposit system, separate collection or post-separation? Which technology provides the best results for each material in terms of sorting and processing? And if, for example, you want to reuse beverage cartons, what are the requirements for the collection system? Wageningen Food & Biobased Research provides government institutions and companies with the insights necessary to take well-considered steps towards more and more circular recycling.

Insight into the entire recycling chain

Wageningen Food & Biobased Research oversees the entire recycling chain. We have the in-house knowledge and facilities to simulate the recycling process from start to finish: from sorting and mechanical processing to reprocessing and assessing the quality of the recycled material. Recycled materials almost always contain impurities, named contaminants, resulting in losses and a limited applicability of the recycled material. These contaminants can partly be removed. Like no other party in the Netherlands, we can assess the impact of measures by individual chain actors on the quantity and quality of recycled materials: from plastic and beverage cartons to glass, paper and cardboard.

Wide range of research questions

As a knowledge institution, we can help clients with answers to a wide range of research questions. In our laboratory at Wageningen Campus, for example, we analyse in which recycling products and waste flows packaging materials end up in. We also offer scientifically substantiated insight into the recycling chains, the choice of collection systems and the added value of new sorting and reprocessing technologies.