First ice cream brand to use new recycling technology

Last year, Magnum was the first ice cream brand to use recycled polypropylene plastic in its packaging and now its rolling out over 7 million new tubs and lids for its pints range.

Magnum’s new tubs and lids for its pints range are fully recyclable and made with recycled polypropylene plastic (rPP).

Magnum was the first to use recycled plastic within the ice cream industry and although there have been rPP options available for beauty and personal care products for some time, there were previously no solutions approved for use in food-grade packaging.

Initially, 600,000 of the new tubs were launched in Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain in 2019. This year, more than 7 million will be introduced across other European countries. And from 2021 onwards, the new packs will be rolled out globally.

Magnum is a brand under Unilever, a British-Dutch multinational consumer goods company. Unilever are aiming that by 2025, all Magnum tubs will be made with recycled plastic.

“We are proud to be one of the world’s first ice cream brands to pioneer this ground-breaking technology. Through this new approach, we hope to lead the food and refreshment industry towards a more sustainable future, paving the way to a circular economy,” Julien Barraux, Global VP for Magnum said.

Magnum collaborated with  SABIC – a global leader in diversified chemicals – to develop the rPP.

“The rPP used in Magnum is not obtained by traditional mechanical recycling, as this is not suitable for food contact packaging. We use an innovative recycling process that transforms the plastic waste into a resin with the same characteristics as virgin food-grade resin,” Unilever said in a statement.

“This new technology allows us to recycle low quality, mixed plastic waste that would otherwise most likely be destined for incineration or landfill. It is not currently possible to produce food-grade rPP with any other form of recycling system.”

The move is part of Unilever’s wider global packaging commitment to halve the company’s use of virgin plastic by reducing its absolute use of plastic packaging by more than 100,000 tonnes and accelerating its use of recycled plastic by 2025.

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