Today, 90.7% of the world's resources are used only once before it becomes waste. To ensure material access to future product production, we rely on recycled material to a much greater extent than today.
Future Materials has worked extensively with industrial recycling together with various companies and helped them to use bi and lateral streams in their own production, or to further refine this into new products.
We have a wide range of relevant waste processing equipment, for pilot product production based on recycled material, and testing facilities to document the quality of the finished product.
We also work closely with the Norwegian Center for Circular Economy and other relevant clusters and companies in the recycling industry.
In 2022, our partner, Norner, started an interdisciplinary collaboration project where the aim was for the 10 participating companies to increase the proportion of recycled plastic in their production. An interdisciplinary collaborative project was motivating. They found great motivation in developing an interdisciplinary collaborative project where they can help each other develop circular solutions.
HDPE bottles for Personal Care and Cosmetic products (Cosmetics) are an attractive segment for the use of post-consumer recycled (PCR) materials. The availability is poor for materials that have good enough mechanical properties and purity. The latter can cause odour and migration of substances which needs safety documentation. Can a 3-layer structure be the solution?
In December 2022, the Circular Solutions for the Aquaculture Industry project (SirkAQ) was awarded a grant of almost NOK 70 million from the government’s Green Platform support scheme. The Green Platform is a national initiative to support research- and innovation-driven green restructuring in trade and industry.
EU is introducing requirements to converters within packaging, building and construction, automotive, and several other applications where plastics are being used. The proposed Plastic and Packaging Waste Regulative (PPWR) states that by 2030, the minimum amount of recycled content of single-use plastic beverage bottles will be 30 %, and the number will increase to 65% by 2040. Similar targets will be published for other applications, and these are tough requirements to meet for the industry. The race to build knowledge and competence within plastic recycling and characterization of the resulting products is at full speed.