In response to the measures that France is planning to boost the recycling of plastics waste – see Plasteurope.com of 17.08.2018 – packaging group Guillin (Ornans / France; www.groupeguillin.fr) and domestic leader on the recycling market Paprec (La Courneuve / France; www.paprec.com) are to work together on the use of recycled plastics in the production of thermoformed PET and PP trays for food packaging.

According to CEO Sophie Guillin-Frappier, recycled plastics have accounted for about half of the pellets used in rigid film production for many years now. The "Reusal" project launched jointly with Paprec is setting out to ensure greater recovery of packaging and, with its "tray-to-tray" principle, considerably increase the amount of recyclate used in packaging production.

The two companies will be pooling development activities in this field and setting up a specific unit for the collection, sorting and recovery of PET packaging from the waste stream. This post-sorting unit is to be located at Paprec’s “Bretagne 35” plant in Rennes / France. So far, trays – including those made from PET – have not been collected separately in France but are disposed with household waste. To date, separate collection for plastic packaging has been mostly restricted to bottles and film, depending on the region.

In fiscal 2017, Guillin generated revenues of just under EUR 600m. This was up 5.4% on the previous year. EBIT at EUR 70m failed to match the prior year's figure of EUR 74.3m. Profits were also somewhat lower at EUR 49.3m.