Circular economy, sustainable and eco-design, chemical recycling, together toward new routes for multi-layer packaging waste, or simply, MERLIN.
Officially started on June 1st 2021, MERLIN has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Grant Agreement No 101003883, with an allocated budget of € 4.926.225.
Coordinated by the Spanish technological centre ITENE, 14 European partners made up by sorting technology providers, recyclers, research centres, social innovation experts and end-users, have 36 months of work ahead to design a unique solution to increase the quality and rate of recycled multi-layer packaging waste.
The main objective of MERLIN is the development and promotion of disruptive processes for the sorting, delamination and recycling of rigid and flexible multi-layer plastic packaging waste from post-consumer and post-industrial sources in order to obtain new high-performance packaging solutions (flexible and rigid) for the food packaging industry.
MERLIN solution will be gradually implemented starting with the sorting process that will occur combining optical sensors, Artificial Intelligence and robotics. Subsequently, the delamination process will optimize depolymerisation and using solvent-based processes; the final processes will be the recycling techniques for repolymerization and upcycling of polymers, and the validation, by developing rigid and flexible packaging solutions and demonstrating circularity of the processes.
These solutions will be developed and later validated in a real environment to TRL 6.
MERLIN has a positive impact on the environment, recovering and recycling the 3.03 Mt/year of multi-layer packaging waste in Europe, leading to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the dependence on imported fossil fuels.
MERLIN contributes to the European Strategy for Plastics, The Circular Plastics Alliance, the EU Green Deal, and the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals 3, 4, 5, 7, 13 & 19.
The consortium held online its kick off meeting on July 1st. During the meeting, partners have presented their entities, the team involved, and the specific activities to be carried out during the project. With the project’s official launch, MERLIN partners are now ready to synergising their knowledge and expertise to carry out the assigned tasks towards the realization of the expected outcomes.
For more information, please contact Mr. Jose Luis Dieguez at joseluis.dieguez@itene.com, or Ms. Nuria Fuster Valls at nuria.fuster@itene.com.
