Recycled Polystyrene Yogurt Cups Come to Fruition

Ineos Styrolution announced the successful completion of a project to incorporate mechanically recycled postconsumer polystyrene into yogurt cups. The Ineos process involves deep NIR sorting, including object recognition, hot washing, melt filtration and pelletizing.

Key in the process is Ineos Styrolution’s “super clean process” which has been registered as a novel technology according to the EU regulation 2022/1616. With this process, Ineos Styrolution achieves food contact quality recyclates which before were only known (in the EU) from PET bottle recyclates.

According to Ineos, the recycled material offers the same physical properties as conventionally produced polystyrene. Intensive quality controls were performed on both the material and the cups. Additionally, detailed analyses are required for the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) evaluation of the technology.

A first consumer test on the acceptance of the recyclate-containing cup and the cup color was conducted in spring 2024 in collaboration with Unternehmensgruppe Theo Müller, a German dairy manufacturer. Several hundred yogurt cups made from recycled polystyrene were filled and offered to volunteers in an Ineos canteen to evaluate the innovation. According to feedback results, 90% of the testers indicated they would buy the product. Testers also shared feedback that a recycled cup in a color other than today’s plain white would be completely acceptable.

“Polystyrene arrived in the champions league of recycled food contact materials. It will enable producers to meet the new requirements of the new EU directive PPWR for packaging and packaging waste,” says Dr. Frank Eisenträger, ECO and market development manager at Ineos Styrolution.

The new technology was presented at the Dresden Packaging Conference by Eisenträger along with Lena Lembach, senior packaging development, Unternehmensgruppe Theo Müller.

Lembach says: “This is a milestone achievement on our common way to perfect circularity for polystyrene cups and towards fulfillment of the PPWR requirements as well as our own CO₂ footprint reduction targets.”

The yogurt cups will arrive in early 2025 on the shelves of the German supermarket chain Lidl.