At NOVA Chemicals, we’ve adopted a solutions-focused approach that guides our actions and investments toward circularity through innovative product development, strategic relationships and collaborations, market and technical expertise, and industry advocacy. To achieve a plastics circular economy, all companies throughout the value chain must work together to collaborate and cultivate solutions that create more opportunities for recyclability and the incorporation of recycled materials.
As a resin producer and marketer of recycled products, we use our role in the plastics value chain to support the increased incorporation of recycled materials and the use of all-PE monomaterial structures in packaging designs. We accomplish this by collaborating with brand owners, converters, and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to educate on available products and technology and help develop solutions their meet their specific needs.
Partnerships Across the Value Chain
Through our collaborative efforts, we create solutions that meet performance and circularity needs. The relationships we cultivate help advance innovation, bringing solutions to the market faster, and more effectively, than if any one player were working on the problem alone. For example, until recently, recycled materials that met the requirements for food applications were difficult to find due to purity and consistency concerns. We released our first mechanically recycled food-contact resin in 2023 as part of our SYNDIGO™ recycled polyethylene (rPE) portfolio to fulfill this need. Amcor and Pregis, both leaders in the packaging industry, will use SYNDIGO rPE resin in their flexible packaging products. Pregis will advance its use in food packaging products, including stand-up pouches (SUPs), fitmented pouches and lay-flat bags.
We’re also proud to announce that we’ve received a Letter of Non Objection from the US FDA for food contact rPE that will be produced that NOVA Chemical’s first mechanical recycling facility in Connersville, Indiana. This facility will process post-consumer plastic film to produce over 100 million pounds of rPE per year by 2025.
In 2023, we built strategic relationships with biaxial film producers Inteplast, JK Materials, Oben Group and Polivouga to accelerate the market adoption of our biaxially oriented high-density polyethylene (BOPE-HD) film, which offers the opportunity to create more recyclable options for flexible packaging traditionally made with mixed-material films. The ability to produce BOPE-HD film on commercial tenter frame lines can help suppliers work toward meeting the global demand for recyclable packaging.
Building a Circular Economy
Transitioning from a linear economy to a circular economy will require a transformative shift in how goods are sourced, produced and recycled. It involves looking at a product’s full life cycle, from how it is manufactured to what will happen after it is used. Using mono-material packaging designs and reducing the amount of plastic used in packaging are current design practices aimed at advancing circularity.
With the introduction of BOPE-HD resin technology, ASTUTE™ plastomer resins, and SYNDIGO™ rPE, we’ve enabled customers to replace multi-material packaging components with all-polyethylene alternatives that have the potential to be recycled. Our efforts to develop innovative products and build collaborative relationships across the value chain, result in quality products that give brand owners and retailers more opportunities to use less packaging and focus more on circularity.
Future Aspirations
We are working on methods and systems to ensure that a reliable and consistent supply of high-quality rPE will be available through the production of SYNDIGO rPE at our new mechanical recycling facility. Additionally, our new Advanced SCLAIRTECH™ technology facility in Ontario, Canada will increase our supply of SCLAIR® and SURPASS® polyethylene resins while also positioning the products closer to customers.
Collaboration throughout the plastics industry, from packaging manufacturers to recyclers, is essential if we want to create a truly circular economy for plastics. Creative approaches are needed to help companies adapt to changing legislation and overcome the challenges of adapting new materials to their existing operations. There is a long road ahead of us, but together we can achieve the many benefits that plastics offer us while increasing product circularity.