Collaboration: an extraordinary resource
The interview with Aliplast's CEO, Michele Petrone. We met him at the Milano Beauty Week 2024
Luciana Guidotti
We met Michele Petrone, recently appointed CEO of Aliplast, at Palazzo Giureconsulti on a beautiful sunny day during Milan Beauty Week 2024, the week dedicated to the culture of beauty and well-being organized by Cosmetica Italia in collaboration with Cosmoprof and Esxence. Conceived to highlight the particularities of the Italian cosmetics supply chain, the initiative has for three years been promoting the social, scientific and economic value of a sector required to deliver on the themes of sustainability in the broad sense and the circular economy.
They are themes regarding which, for its history and nature, Aliplast has certainly much to say, on the back of a culture of (circular) recovery and (well-managed) recycling of plastic scraps and waste that can give life to new products.
Hello, therefore, to Michele Petrone, CEO of Aliplast, who tells us…
«I would like to tell you, first of all, how a “collective” initiative led to the development of a prototype of a cosmetics bottle in rPET. The driver of the project was the working group which brought together, besides us recyclers, various operators from the value chain (Pink Frogs, formulator of the oil-to-milk micellar make-up remover, Eurovetrocap, packaging producer and Eurolabel, label producer) to arrive at a packaging conceived, right from the outset, from a circular point of view, combining industrial, environmental, functional and aesthetic needs.
Aliplast has been collaborating with Cosmetica Italia for some time, and last year we drew up together guidelines that allow companies to think about the need to enter a new chapter of sustainability…»
«I’ll start from there, because I think that it has been a successful attempt at making people and companies understand that, precisely starting from individual behaviour and choices, it’s possible to create products that respond to best practices allowing for the renewal, recycling and regeneration of materials.
After presenting the White Paper on cosmetic packaging, we started to work on perhaps the most innovative part of the entire project: we, in fact, set up a multidisciplinary working group, involving people and companies that are an active part of the value chain…
After all, the only way to achieve a significant result is through partnerships, as, moreover, the UN agenda prescribes in its goal number 17, which I have always believed to be the most important of all».
«In this way, a partnership has the authentic value of a joint work effort: together with us, who have the role of recyclers and regenerators of plastic material, others have dealt with designing and producing the bottle, with the label and with developing the cosmetic product.
All have constantly provided analysis data, sharing the certainty of a common goal: developing a packaging that is 100% sustainable and recyclable. Thinking about the final consumer, we also wanted the disposal of the container to be easy to manage. And we’re happy with the result. The consumer does not, in fact, need to worry about removing the bottle cap or label, given that the entire container can be disposed of directly in the separate waste collection.
This is where we at Aliplast come in, managing the material and recycling it 100%, to then reintroduce it into the production circuit: we work, in fact, with two different materials - rPET for the bottle e PE/PP for the cap – which can be put together in the same waste collection and we can manage them simultaneously without problems in the recycling phase, given that they self-separate as a result of their qualitative and technical characteristics. The material delivered is intercepted as part of the selection, and then followed by grinding and washing.
It’s important to point out that during washing, the label - which takes up less than 50% of the surface area and, therefore, requires less adhesive - is immediately removed without any type of problem».
A recycled and recyclable PET bottle
The small bottle in 100% recycled PET, produced by Aliplast, has been designed according to the indications of the white paper: “Plastic packaging in the cosmetics sector: a guide to more circular production” presented in 2023 by Cosmetica Italia and Aliplast, which puts together all necessary practical indications to guide the sector towards packaging in fully recyclable plastic.
It sets out a series of factors that favour recycling. Besides a main body in PET mono-material, transparent colour shades allow for better quality recycling as they are easily intercepted by plastic selection readers.
The choice of polymers that facilitate the separation between the PET bottle and the PE/PP cap is also well thought out. Labels are also moving in the direction of recyclability, being removable in the recycling phase, eliminating the need for screen-printing on the bottle. The result is a “circular” container that also makes the consumer’s life easier, since once the bottle is empty of its contents, it’s just necessary to dispose of it in plastic sorted waste without having to separate the cap or label.
A circular tale increasingly enriched with new developments
«Working together with Cosmetica Italia and cosmetic packaging producers has reassured us about the quality of the investments that Aliplast is making. I’m referring, in particular, to the plant under completion in Modena (inside the centre where the waste-to-energy plant and the waste water purification plant managed by the multi-utility group Hera, to which also Aliplast refers, already coexist, Ed.) which will be able to produce every year, at full capacity and with the upcycling method, up to 30,000 tonnes of high-quality recycled polymers starting from rigid plastic waste, that is, HDPE and PP, among the most difficult to recycle effectively, coming from sectors such as consumer electronics and the automotive industry».
«I would also like to mention the Piedmont factory in Borgolavezzaro (Novara), where we are carrying out an extension, aiming to increase its strategic value as a connecting hub with the north-west areas of Italy and with the Aliplast sites in Spain and France. Specifically, the plant will be dedicated to the regeneration of LDPE granules, with the aim of intercepting the demand for stretch packaging material. Again, in this case, it’s the collaboration with important operators in the field of logistics that has driven experimentation and research, given the considerable interest in regenerated stretch packaging. We have already had good returns and we will soon start with further experiments dedicated to a number of customers, so as to arrive in a short time at a quality production on an industrial scale.
I would like to underline, finally, that both projects imply, in practice, also a significant increase in human resources: between Modena and Novara, we will have, in fact, around 100 new colleagues, with positive repercussions for the social fabric of these territories».
Points of strength: commitment and transparency
«We have always been open to seizing opportunities that can derive from growth through external means or starting from scratch, after verifying the potential for areas in which we already operate, both in terms of the supply of waste and the sale of materials.
Today, Aliplast’s great point of strength is being part of Herambiente – Hera Group, for which sustainability has always been the keystone of every activity: we are considered a flagship, through which it is possible to develop further circular economy projects. We could say we are “the operating arm of sustainability”. And this is despite the very complicated market dynamics, with a significant disparity between the prices of virgin raw materials and those of secondary raw materials.
Aliplast’s numbers, moreover, continue to be good: a turnover which, historically, exceed 200 million euros, an investment plan of around 100 million and 420 workers (growing, as we have already said).
«For our part, we trust in the fact that a more complete and certain regulation can give new impetus to supporting the recycling industry in Italy, which is certainly at the cutting edge, but which also needs to be protected.
Every year Aliplast draws up a sustainability report and carries out LCA studies, demonstrating with effective data that the production of recycled plastic raw materials has, in terms of CO2 emissions, a much lower impact compared to virgin raw materials.
The promotion of lower CO2 emissions could make a further contribution to the development of recycling companies: a move that would be of “zero impact” for the State, as well in line with the PPWR.
Considering that the minimum content of recycled material in packaging is destined to increase, especially in disposable packaging, we want to be ready. Our investments will allow us to seize the opportunities inherent in the PPWR, and we support the line of clear and above all equal rules for everyone, opening the way to healthy and fair market competition. We support the need for greater controls, which will lead to greater attention to the quality of the material produced and its traceability, as far as certification. And, I repeat, Aliplast is ready».
