In January 2020, we have welcomed three new ECOSENSE companies: the Spanish thermoformers BANDESUR (facilities at Alcalá la Real, Jaen), ENVAPLASTER (facilities at Viana, Navarra) and MANIPLASTIC (facilities at Burgos).
In addition, in the last quarter of 2019, the sheet producer BENZAPLASTIC, with facilities at Alcalá la Real (Jaen), and the sheet producer and tray manufacturer ONDUPET, with facilities located in Almendralejo (Badajoz), joined the ECOSENSE certification. Likewise, the certifications of the KLOCKNER PENTAPLAST Group’s facilities in Girona and Santo Tirso (Portugal) and of the Spanish food packer CAPRICHO ANDALUZ (Grupo BORGES Internacional) remained valid.
The ECOSENSE certification is the initiative of the Plastic Sense Foundation to consolidate a circular economy model within the thermoformed PET tray sector. It is aimed to sheet producers, thermoformers and food packers in order to recognize and disseminate the work of companies that incorporate transparent PET flakes from recycling processes certified by the Plastic Sense Foundation as secondary raw material into their production processes for the manufacture or use of monolayer and/or multilayer sheets and/or trays.
The final purpose of the circular model is to increase the volume of transformed sheet of multilayer and monolayer waste coming from trays into recycled transparent PET which is subsequently incorporated into new transparent thermoformed PET trays, that is, in food applications, with the same value as the originals. In order to guarantee this “upcycling” and maximize the circularity of the packaging, the certification focuses both upstream, on the eco-design of the product in accordance with the Guidelines to Ensure the Recyclability of Thermoformed PET Trays published by the Foundation, as well as downstream, to ensure that the final destination of the waste, coming from sheet and trays, is a recycling company certified by the Foundation.
To obtain the ECOSENSE certificate, the facilities of the companies are subjected to an inspection process by an entity accredited by ENAC under the ISO / IEC 17020 standard, which verifies the compliance with the requirements established in the corresponding ECOSENSE procedures.