P&G recycling process advances

Consumer products giant Procter & Gamble has developed a process that restores used polypropylene to like-new resin. The technology removes virtually all contaminants and colors from the cast-off plastic, creating a recycled polymer that is nearly identical in performance and properties to virgin polypropylene, P&G says. It has licensed the process to the Ohio-based start-up firm PureCycle Technologies, which plans to open a pilot plant in January and a full-scale plant in 2020. P&G intends to buy the polypropylene to help it double use of recycled resins in packaging by 2020, but it expects other companies will also purchase the resin.