The Waste Agency of Catalonia has published the final resolution of the proposals submitted to the call for projects to promote the circular economy in 2022. This line of aid aims to promote "projects to accelerate the transition to to a circular economy in Catalonia, improve efficiency in the use of material resources and decouple global economic development from resource consumption".

Within the framework of this call, the Packaging Cluster accompanied three associated companies (Contolpack, Ecogots and IP Triana) in the preparation and presentation of innovative project proposals in the field of the circular economy.

One of these projects is SPBack, promoted by Controlpack, one of the main distributors of stretch film at national level. With the execution of this initiative, the possibility of activating recovery circuits for the stretch film distributed by the company will be evaluated, and of doing a pilot with a customer to activate the recovery of film through reverse logistics, find recyclers of LDPE film and contextualize possible plastic tax deductions for film recovery.

Low-density polyethylene (also known as PEBD or LDPE by its acronym in English) is a thermoplastic polymer, from the olefinic group, made up of multiple ethylene units. Its strength is flexibility. In addition, it is very resistant to impact and to different thermal and chemical conditions. Despite being a recyclable plastic, this material, like all virgin plastics (recyclable or not), is not exempt from the plastic tax recently imposed throughout the State.

This is why Controlpack seeks to offer a reverse logistics system once the material it supplies has been used, allowing the company to solve two major challenges that recycling presents: (i) Volume. In many cases some materials are not recycled because not enough volume of the material in question is collected, and (ii) Knowledge of the material and homogeneity. The company knows the composition of its material well and, since it is imported and handled by themselves, it has the same characteristics.

Although the recycling of materials at an industrial level does not currently provide the certification that allows tax deduction, the project represents a step forward in the circular economy roadmap that the new guidelines mark. In addition, the new Royal Decree on packaging and industrial waste refers to bonuses for cycle closure, recovery or recycling systems, and establishes the need to adhere to Individual or Collective Extended Producer Responsibility Systems Waste (SYRAP/SCRAP).

Controlpack's trajectory in the field of sustainability has so far been aligned with the optimization of packaging and film reduction in pallet application. The company offers a technical service to client companies for advice on the optimized application of plastic film. Therefore, Controlpack acts as a technology supplier in pallet coating systems and focuses its R+D+i activity on the introduction of new technical materials, such as films with nanoparticles that allow to increase their resistance by minimizing the amount of plastic applied on pallet

In addition, one of the company's star products is servitization. Controlpack is dedicated to the distribution of film and machinery, but also offers a pay-per-use system, that is, machines at zero cost in exchange for using its own film.

As a distributor of packaging material and specialized machinery for its application, Controlpack has been working with its main customers since 2013 on a distribution model based on servitization. Under this way of working, the system called "Pay per Use" makes available to its customers the free transfer of machinery in exchange for the exclusive purchase of stretch film.

This system represents a great environmental impact in terms of savings in film application, since the Controlpack machinery manages to stabilize the amount of film applied with savings of 30% compared to manual applications. And it also promotes an increase in the life cycle of the machinery, where Controlpack at all times safeguards the ownership of the machine, carries out adequate maintenance and regulates the extension of use through the introduction to second-hand markets.

All this allows them, on the one hand, to offer better advice related to the optimization of the previously mentioned material, and on the other hand, the implementation of circular systems of their materials, as this project aims to do.