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Photo Credit: Nova Chemicals

Nova Chemicals has released it eight annual sustainability report. The company has been reporting on its non-financial performance since the publication of its first sustainability report in 2014. Now referred to as Nova’s Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) report, its intended to help the company demonstrate how they creates value for the company, its suppliers, and customers; how they work to help solve global challenges; and how they care for people and the environment. Among the company’s advancements in this arena, its evolving product offerings and application development efforts are key highlights. As noted in the new ESG report, they include:

â–ª Ready-to-Recycle: A portfolio of seven PE resins that reportedly retain their key physical performance properties when reprocessed multiple times through mechanical recycling. This enables their reuse in high-value flexible film applications such as stretch films, stand-up pouches, multi-pack collation shrink, and heavy-duty sacks. They are also designed to incorporate a high percentage of recycled material in flexible packaging without affecting the performance in the end-use application. Through proprietary studies, Nova has demonstrated that when plastics such as PE stretch film are manufactured with its ready-to-recycle resins, they can be reprocessed into similar products several times. Ultimately, they can be converted into durable plastic goods such as synthetic lumber for furniture or fencing.

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 â–ª Recycled PE: The company rPE product are 100%  PCR, enabling these valuable materials to be recycled and reused again and again. Through three strategic long-term agreements, Nova has helped these companies meet their goals to increase the amount of post-consumer material in plastic packaging such as e-commerce packaging, stretch films, trash bags, shrink bundling, and heavy-duty shipping sack

 â–ª  The company’s experts at its center for performance applications promote circularity by designing film structures and rigid products that incorporate rPE. In one example, Nova’s team developed a series of customizable film structure designs formulated with rPE. The film structures, which incorporate rLDPE and rLLDPE, reportedly can be tailored to meet the needs of customers who want to incorporate recycled content into products such as protective packaging for e-commerce.

 â–ª  Nova’s team aims to amplify the company’s impact on the plastics circular economy by designing for circularity up front. They collaborate with customers to replace non-recyclable multi-material packaging with recyclable packaging made with polyethylene. For example, its BOPE-HD resin technology enables fully recyclable packaging for an expanded range of products without sacrificing performance. It is ideal for use in food packaging, heavy duty sacks, e-commerce, and other demanding applications. Developments like BOPE-HD are critical to achieving industry commitments to make all plastic packaging reusable, recyclable, or recoverable. Nova is  working with Brückner Maschinenbau, the world’s leading stretching line manufacturer, to accelerate the development and commercialization of this technology.

 â–ª  Advanced recycling addresses the hard-to-recycle segments of plastic waste through technologies such as gasification or pyrolysis, converting plastic waste to feedstocks for new plastic production. Nova is investigating pyrolysis technology and continues its work with Enerkem, the first company in the world to produce renewable methanol and ethanol from non-recyclable, non-compostable municipal solid waste at full commercial scale. Together, they are partnering to scale up this game-changing technology to transform hard-to-recycle municipal waste, including plastics and other items such as household waste and construction materials, into feedstocks that can be used to manufacture new plastics. Using advanced recycling feedstocks to produce polyethylene would help meet industry goals for recycled content in packaging. Nova has plans to  start construction of a pilot scale reactor in 2022.