In a first for the Australian snack sector, Snackbrands Australia has completed a trial converting leftover cooking oil into plastic packaging, undertaking a closed-loop recycling process with Viva Energy’s Geelong refinery, as Natasha Schapova reports for ABC News.
Under the pilot, about 120 tonnes of used cooking oil from Snackbrands’ Sydney operations were shipped to the refinery. There, it was heated, processed into bio-based plastic, and ultimately formed into roughly 15 million chip packets. The oil would otherwise have been diverted to animal feed or exported for biodiesel.
The trial’s result: 100 tonnes of soft plastic derived from the oil, representing a step toward reducing reliance on virgin fossil‐based plastics. According to Snackbrands’ Innovation & Sustainability Director, Tracey Seager, the scheme “reduces imports of fossil fuels and emissions associated with conventional packaging.”
Viva Energy, which annually makes about 80,000 tonnes of soft plastics, sees the initiative as a pathway to scaling bio-circular plastic production. Over the next 5–10 years, it aims to increasingly replace crude oil feedstocks with used cooking oils and pyrolysis‐derived oils.
A key hurdle: the resulting packaging is currently only landfill-destined, because existing recycling streams can’t process the material.
Independent voices welcome the move—but include warnings. Dr. Trevor Thornton of Deakin University argues that consumer confusion over recyclability could lead to contamination of existing recycling systems. He also urges efforts to reduce packaging material overall.
Fuente: ABC News. Full story here
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