US industry is looking for more sustainable solutions to replace plastic bags which are highly polluting and non-biodegradable. But, Cortec Corporation is already well ahead in that achievement with a strong recycling program that produces VCI films with up to 20% recycled content.
Since plastic bags are highly polluting and non-biodegradable, the US industry is looking for more sustainable solutions. The goal is to increase the percentage of recycled content in shopping bags to 20% by 2025. But, Cortec® Corporation is already well ahead in the field of VCI (Vapor Corrosion Inhibitor) packaging. In fact, more than 20 years ago, the company patented the technology for the production of anticorrosive films based on recycled plastic resin and still today it leads the market with a strong recycling program that produces VCI films with up to 20% recycled film content.
Cortec's VpCI®-126 film
Cortec produces regularly the
VpCI®-126film with 15% of pre- and post-consumer recycled content, significantly exceeding the recent American Recyclable Plastic Bag Alliance milestone of reaching 10% recycled content shopping bags by 2021 and 15% by 2023. In addition, the company is achieving these results in a specialized industrial field, i.e. corrosion protection of products during shipping or storage. The VpCI®-126 film is very versatile: it can be extruded and converted into different formats and sizes according to the needs of the end users.
A strong cooperation with an important off-road equipment assembly plant
For decades, Cortec® has been able to minimize its plastic film waste by recycling VpCI®-126 scrap at its Cortec Advanced Films (CAF) facility in Cambridge, Minnesota. In addition, several years ago, it extended this recycling opportunity to an important off-road equipment assembly plant that receives engine components from a large number of suppliers in the US and around the world. After an in-depth study on VpCI®-126, it was discovered that the oil has no role in protecting against corrosion and for this reason it was eliminated from the film formulation. This allowed the customer to save several hundred thousand dollars a year by reducing the costs of chemical liability insurance. Also, the absence of oil into the film formulation allows the costumer to reuse corrugated plastic coatings that previously had to be disposed of due to oil contamination. For this achievement, the client was involved in Cortec's recycling program.
VpCI®-126 bags are also no longer contaminated with oil. The client packs them without additional costs and sends them back to CAF for reprocessing into a new film.
The strong commitment on the part of both companies is creating a real circular economy. CAF is helping to save hundreds of thousands of pounds of plastic from the landfill or incinerator and turning it into a new quality product by reducing pollution.
The recycling service arrives in Europe
This recycling service is also available for European companies at the EcoCortec® plant in Cortec in Beli Manastir, Croatia. With the recycling program's success and CAF's and EcoCortec's capacities to implement even more recycled content into its VpCI® film, all that Cortec® needs now is for more customers in the U.S. and Europe to sign up for the benefits of the recycling program.