Sustainable packaging innovations

Masterbatch manufacturer masterminding a shift to greater plastics circularity

Founded in 2001 in the Tarragona province stretching along Spain’s gorgeous east coast, masterbatch manufacturer GCR Group has evolved into one of the world’s leaders in helping improve the environmental footprint of plastics by developing and producing consistent, high-quality plastic solutions that substitute virgin plastics and reduce energy consumption in the manufacture of plastic packaging products and materials.

And as the global pressures to reduce the amount of plastic waste discarded into the environment continue to intensify, CGR is working harder than ever to make its vision of ‘Innovating our Sustainable Tomorrow’ today’s reality.

Last month the company has commenced operations of its stateof-the-art short-term and long-term polymer-based solutions that minimize environmental impact, along with nearing completion of a large recycling plant with 200,000 tonnes of annual capacity, scheduled to start up next year.

All told, the company will have invested about $125 million in these and other upgrades by the end of 2025.

“We firmly believe that we have the capability, agility and vision to accelerate the Circular Economy,” says CGR’s innovation director Santiago Sans.

“Through this investment, we demonstrate our belief in collaboration with like-minded partners in the value chain.”

As Sans explains, the new R&D facility houses a dedicated Innovation Hub area containing all the equipment necessary for incubation and proof of concept—from development to pilot plant and final production.

According to Sans, collaborative relationships with the company’s customers will be critical to the company’s success in the recycling of used plastic packaging.

“While materials based on virgin polymer resins have well-defined and consistent properties,” he says, “working with recycled materials or finding ways to reduce carbon footprint presents new challenges that require experimentation to solve.

“Quite often, we need to create custom solutions that are compatible with the particular waste-stream and application,” he says.

“This is why GCR believes collaborative partnerships in ‘co-creation’ projects within the value chain are vital.”

As Sans relates, existing collaborations involve technical institutions, equipment suppliers, raw material and waste-stream suppliers, plastic converters and brand-owners.

Sans adds that GCR also offers turn-key project management where customers completely trust GCR’s capabilities.

“We prefer to send you all our scrap because the quality you’re getting out of it is something we will never reach,” he quotes a major converter.

The company’s extensive materials know-how and relentless attention to quality are reflected in existing product ranges.

Its CICLIC R-polyolefins (recycled polyolefins) are based on ‘upcycling’ fully traceable wastestreams and can deliver similar and consistent material properties as virgin plastics, according to GCR, with 60- to 80-percent lower carbon footprint.

For their part, the GRANIC mineral-filled masterbatches and compounds can offer up to a 30-percent reduction in energy costs in downstream polymer processing.

In addition to an extensive range of existing products, the high-tech Innovation Hub combines GCR’s comprehensive technical and processing expertise to customize products and bring solutions to the challenges encountered when using post-consumer or post-industrial waste.

As Sans explains, “GCR can enhance the value of waste-streams through, for example, compatibilizers or capturing/blocking odour-producing bacteria.”

Sans adds GCR is also keen to accelerate development of more bio-polymer-based and biodegradable solutions.

“Finding new sustainable solutions will require changes in how the plastics industry traditionally works: a combination of know-how, new ways of thinking, and a long-term vision,” he states. “Our investments in Innovation Hub and the new recycling plant bring new tools to help facilitate these changes.”