Blog article UHasselt | Empack Namur

The plastic processing industry is strongly represented in Limburg: our province has 84 plastic processing companies (compounders, packaging producers,…), complemented by 18 companies active in plastic recycling, accounting for more than 4,500 jobs. In the short and medium term, this sector faces enormous challenges: under the EU 2018/852 regulation, 55% of “post-consumer” plastic packaging must be recycled by 2030, and these targets will be further tightened towards the EU vision around full climate neutrality by 2050.
Thanks to a new investment by UHasselt and research institute imo-imomec, supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), recyclate materials for packaging applications can be fully screened. In the laboratories of Prof. Roos Peeters and Prof. Wouter Marchal, innovative research infrastructure worth 255,000 EUR is being deployed, which will be used to assess the permeability of recyclate packaging materials, and on the basis of X-samples to pick up the presence of interfering additives or contaminants. Indeed, it must be verified that paints, adhesives, coatings and inks have been successfully removed in cleaning procedures before plastics are suitable for recycling. In addition, the performance of plastics for food packaging applications can be expected to be affected by the addition of recyclate materials. Identification of contaminants in plastic products, different recyclate types and raw materials, coupled with their
functional properties, is paramount to designing a proper recycling strategy and preparing our industry for the circular future.
(contact: roos.peeters@uhasselt.be, wouter.marchal@uhasselt.be)