UFlex, ExxonMobil collaborate to introduce certified-circular packaging in India

ExxonMobil has made its first commercial sale of certified-circular ExceedTM PE polymers in India to UFlex Limited, India’s largest multinational flexible packaging and solution company headquartered in Noida, India with packaging film manufacturing plants in India, UAE, Mexico, Poland, Egypt, US, Russia, Hungary, and Nigeria. The certified-circular Exceed polymers leverage ExxonMobil’s proprietary ExxtendTM technology for advanced recycling.

This sale of certified-circular polymers in India is significant as it now allows the user to incorporate certified-circular content into food packaging. Mechanically recycled plastic materials have had limited use in food packaging applications. ExxonMobil’s Exxtend technology, on the other hand, helps widen the range of plastic materials that can be recycled, breaking down difficult-to-recycle plastic waste back into its original building blocks that can be attributed to new, certified-circular polymers. Product quality and performance of the certified-circular polymers are identical to virgin plastic, so customers can be confident when using them in existing applications, including contact-sensitive, food-grade packaging solutions.

UFlex in collaboration with brand owners, will be among the first in India to use certified-circular performance PE polymers to produce films for high performance flexible packaging, including food-grade packaging applications. According to Rahul Dubey, General Manager (R&D) UFlex Packaging Division, incorporating certified-circular resins into packaging solutions is one concrete way that it helps to support a circular economy for plastics.

“We recognise the importance of supporting a circular economy for plastics and believe that it requires the collective effort of the value chain. We have engaged with our customers to help develop plastic packaging and helped them access certified-circular material,” Dubey said.

Nitin Thakur, Area Sales Manager, North and East India for ExxonMobil PE business commented: “This step can help society at-large to capture additional value for plastic waste across multiple applications.”

International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) PLUS is a widely recognised global certification system to certify products that can be traced back to the advanced recycling of plastic waste via mass balance attribution. ExxonMobil has obtained ISCC PLUS certification for several of its facilities and has ambitions to build capacity to process 500,000 metric tonnes of plastic waste by year-end 2026 across multiple sites around the world.

“Commercialising certified-circular polymers in our region is an essential enabler to help customers and brand owners realise their plastic circularity ambitions,” said Chan Kwee Lin, Asia Pacific Advanced Recycling and Sustainability General Manager for ExxonMobil, adding that “by offering advanced recycling solutions, ExxonMobil is making it possible for a far broader range of plastic products to be recycled. This puts us one step closer to a world where society can better capture the full value of plastics.” (Press Release)

(PRA)

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