Metsä Group announced a €25 million commercial line for Muoto fibre-based packaging at Äänekoski, targeting startup in 2028 with capacity above 100 million units per year; Valmet will supply the line. Products are formed directly from wet wood pulp for serving and food packaging. The company shifted the project from Rauma and halted the Kuura textile-fibre plan due to market overcapacity. Separately, the first Happy Cup using locally produced Caleyda PHA was injection‑moulded, with food‑contact approval steps being prepared.
BASF advocates an intelligent mix of various complementary technologies for engineering‑plastics recycling, spanning mechanical, solvent‑based recovery, depolymerization (including loopamid for PA6 textile‑to‑textile), and thermochemical routes, all underpinned by scalable sorting and clear regulation. In Australia, a proof‑of‑concept converted soft‑plastics pyrolysis oil into recycled polypropylene for KitKat wrappers at Geelong Refinery under ISCC PLUS mass balance, producing five tonnes of PP for seven million packs; feedstock was imported due to limited domestic supply.
Scale‑up of advanced recycling depends on domestic collection, sorting, and EPR design, with front‑end engineering decisions awaiting packaging‑reform details in Australia. More broadly, deployment of solvent, depolymerization, and thermochemical routes for complex streams requires effective waste‑management systems and predictable regulation to justify investment and enable closed‑loop outputs that meet food‑grade or engineering‑grade specifications.
Brenntag and Budenheim partner on BYPHAR biopharma phosphates, pairing high‑purity production with small‑pack distribution (≤15 kg) for development through commercial manufacturing, while PharSQ Pure (≥25 kg) remains Europe‑only via Brenntag. The GMP, monograph‑compliant portfolio (seven phosphate grades) targets buffers, cell culture, downstream processing, and formulation, reflecting continued standardization of packaged inputs for regulated applications.
