Mechanical recycling is the most traditional form of recycling and involves sorting plastic waste into different material streams, grinding the material into small pieces, washing the material, and then melting it down to form small plastic pellets that can be used to make new packaging.

MR is the most common form of recycling available today and represents the majority of recycling infrastructure present in our key markets. The challenge is the MR is not well suited to all types of packaging, particularly the type of small format flexible plastic packaging that makes up the largest share of our packaging portfolio. This is because the most common sorting technology within MR facilities cannot effectively separate this packaging from the broader waste stream, and because material produced via MR means retains some impurities which prevents its use in many food grade applications.

We are currently redesigning elements of our portfolio to better fit mechanical recycling, and supporting the development of improved MR technologies that can handle a broader set of packaging types.