Aquapak Polymers Ltd (Aquapak), the Birmingham based developer and manufacturer of environmental packaging solutions, is pleased to announce that it has signed up to the Global Commitment of the Ellen Mac Arthur Foundation to eliminate plastic pollution at source. The Global Commitment was launched last week at the Our Ocean Conference in Bali.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF), set up by Ellen MacArthur, the round the world sailor, after she had sailed into a sea of plastic on one of her expeditions. Its one of the most prominent NGOs campaigning for a more responsible approach throughout the supply chain towards the use of plastics. The EMF, in collaboration with the UN Environment, is advocating a New Plastics Economy where all plastic packaging is designed for both functionality and to be fully recycled within a Circular Economy, thereby aiming at eliminating plastic pollution at source. The Global Commitment has been signed by 250 organisations including many of the world’s largest packaging producers, brands, retailers and recyclers, as well as governments and NGOs. The aim is to set increasingly ambitious targets to eliminate plastic pollution by publishing data and holding key stakeholders to account.
Aquapak has developed a range of solutions to replacing traditional plastics in some global applications, especially in consumer packaging, where there are currently no packaging alternatives that can actually be recycled in a cost-effective process.
Aquapak’s highly innovative solutions are based around a special formulation of a single polymer, Hydropol ™, which is a high-performance material on its own, but combines very effectively with other traditional and environmental single material polymers. The combination of two materials, one of which is Hydropol ™, can have the same functionality as a complex multi-layer of non-recyclable materials. However, Aquapak’s Hydropol ™ dissolves in water at high temperatures, and can be separated from these single materials in standard waste streams as it, thus allowing both materials to be recovered and potentially 100% recycled. It is also naturally marine safe and degrades harmlessly into the soil, if it escapes into the environment.
Mark Lapping (CEO of Aquapak). “We are pleased to be able to be one of a small number of raw material suppliers who have signed the Global Commitment, as we see the Ellen MacArthur Foundation as being one of the most effective voices to create a circular economy for plastics. We are also pleased that we have reached a state of commercial readiness with the development of our technology and our state of the art manufacturing facility in Birmingham, that we shall be able to help provide important contributions over the coming years to solving some of biggest problems of non-recycled packaging that are facing us all”.
