All HDPE milk bottles produced this year by Nampak Plastics (Newport Pagnell / UK; www.eu.plastics.nampak.com) will include up to 10% recycled material, saving the company about 7,000 t of virgin polymer.

“We are adding up to 10% recycled content to all our bottles after extensive testing to ensure compliance with the extremely stringent food quality standards you would expect for this type of packaging,” confirmed managing director Eric Collins. “Replacing virgin material with recycled content in our milk bottles is also a significant contributor to Nampak’s continued drive to reducing its overall carbon footprint further still.”

Nampak has invested over GBP 1.5m (around EUR 1.7m) across its seven sites in the UK to facilitate the use of rHDPE. This has included modifications to blow moulding equipment and the installation of new silos, pipework and blenders. The switch further reinforces Nampak’s commitment to help the dairy industry meet the requirements of the “Milk Roadmap” laid out by the UK government’s Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), one of whose targets is for 50% of all milk bottle packaging to be made from recycled materials by 2020.

Nampak has been at the forefront of the drive to use rHDPE in milk packaging and is committed to producing bottles with higher recycling levels than the present 10% – see Plasteurope.com of 22.01.2008.