What if Polypropylene could replace Polystyrene? Jonathan Cage / Impact ICPG

https://icpg.co/about-us/contact-us/

it is possible that polypropylene could replace polystyrene? 
how can we make plastic packaging more recyclable? 
can mono material replace multi material packaging? 

thank you Jonathan Cage for a great interview! 

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Transcript

Cory Connors: 0:31

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors . Today's guest is Mr. Jonathan Cage, the Director of Business Development at Impact I C P G. How are you,

Jonathan Cage: 0:41

Jonathan? I'm doing great. Corey. Super to

Cory Connors: 0:43

see you. Really good to see you again. We, we were just talking about the, before the show we met at the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, which what an amazing organization that is

Jonathan Cage: 0:53

for. Oh, it truly is. I'm, I'm just thrilled with the work that they're doing. Love going to the conferences. We've, you know, we went to a couple last year and we are just gonna continue on that journey.

Cory Connors: 1:04

I'm totally impressed with Paul Nowak and what, what he's got going on in that. Yeah, just incredible the whole group over there. My friend Danielle works there, is just really good team. Yes. So, well, let's talk about you and, and your background a little bit. What Sure. How'd you get into packing? Well,

Jonathan Cage: 1:19

you know, it's interesting. I I've actually been in packaging my entire professional career. I started off in flexible films. Yes. And, and walking through, you know, the plant, I was fascinated. I just absolutely fell in love with probably the smell and the plastics and the equipment. And so that's kind of where I really, you know, got my feet wet, was in flexible packaging. And then I, I kind of transitioned halfway through my career into. Packaging into multilayer high barrier co-extrusion type structures and things like that, and a variety of materials. And so sort of made that, that made that switch into the rigid field. Yeah.

Cory Connors: 1:59

You know, that's interesting. I hear that quite a bit, that people have spent their entire career in packaging. Yes. I think it's a such a. Situation, you know, it's such a unique I wanna say just world that we've, it is, we've been walked into here,

Jonathan Cage: 2:13

isn't it? It it, it's so fascinating to me, just all of the different types of packaging and, you know, we actually have formed this thing called CAP Team, which is crazy about packaging cuz. We are and you know, and, and so I just, you know, you know, whether it's flexibles or rigids or blow molding and new technologies and processing. I just, you know, I just, you know, love being in, in the packaging field, in the packaging world.

Cory Connors: 2:42

Sure. Well tell us about I C P G.

Jonathan Cage: 2:45

Sure. So I C P G basically is a sister division of impact plastics. We've got a couple of locations. Our headquarters are up in Putnam, Connecticut. And then we've got our other manufacturing, fac, other manufacturing facility in Hamlet, North Carolina, which is I'm located down in, in the Carolinas and the I C P G diversion, which is our our Impact Consumer Products Group is really primarily focused on rigid packaging for refrigerated through shelf stable products. So, you know, if you take for instance, you know, sort of creamers or apple source cups or you know, condiment packaging, like the array trays and things like that, that's all products that we're making at I C P G. Oh, fascinating.

Cory Connors: 3:28

So it's, I, I've got a, a list of questions here and one of them is Sure about polystyrene. Can you tell us what, how does that relate to what you're.

Jonathan Cage: 3:38

Well, you know, it's a really interesting journey, Corey. About 10, 12 years ago we were working with a couple of big CPGs who were at that time really trying to get outta polystyrene . Mm-hmm. um, For a number of reasons. There's some prop 65 issues, there's monomer issues, et cetera. So, you know, there's a few things that associated with styrene . Styrene is an amazing material. It's got so many capabilities and it's a very difficult material because of those properties to replace, but it's come under fire and in the states, you know, really the volume that we're dealing with in Palestine, especially in form fill, seal applications, is really not that great. So it makes it really more challenging., you know, to implement that infrastructure at the MIRFs, et cetera, to be able to Right. To collect that and get value outta Polystyrene . Mm-hmm., you know, o otherwise, it's been an amazing material that, you know, I've worked with for many years, but because it's now moved, you know, it's sort of outta favor. What our mission has been is to try and look at alternative solutions to replace star, which, you know, is. Challenging on many levels.. Cory Connors: Very, I agree. Very important. Very important. And you know, if I could just sort of, you know, keep going here is Go for it. Yeah. Your show about about about three and a half years ago. You know, we, after I joined I C P G We identified a material that is pure polypropylene. But because of the technology and the resin and our manufacturing process, we are a, we were actually able to duplicate the properties of polystyrene . Wow. And so this opened up some really unique opportunities because literally, , we had been chasing the proverbial unicorn for years, and it's like, where is that unicorn? And so it was, Being able to take styrine, replace it with polypropylene, and then run it on a form full seal line. And so, you know, through experimentation and we did a lot of testing. We were sitting around the conference room, you know, and scored across the web after we had extruded it and it snapped and we're like, wow. You know, and I, we kind of looked at each other and about that time, I think out of the corner of my eye, I saw the unicorn trotting across the parking lot, . So I'm like, okay, we've got something here, people. Yeah. And it was, it was tremendous. And so over those over the last three years, of course, you know, we timed it perfectly with the launch of Covid and Yeah. You know, it was like, wow, here we go. Yeah. So over the, about the last three years, we've really been able to refine and develop, Polypropylene solution that can run on horizontal form, full seal machines, uhhuh to replace Palestinian at a very, very economical price point. Excellent. So it's been, it's been a great journey and we've got trials going on on six continents at the moment. So it's really I think. Not only is it kind of a, a unique development, it really, truly pro is providing some solutions, a sustainable solution an alternative that the big brand owners, et cetera can look at for form seal.

Cory Connors: 6:51

So polypropylene is number five, if I'm, if I'm correct. And that is correct. Yeah. Poly styrene is number six. Yes. And . Oftentimes when I hear polystyrene or styrofoam as people call it, mm-hmm., it's kind of the brand name. Right? Right. We're thinking of that white expanded polystyrene, which is impact resistant material that's used for heavy things like dishwashers and things like that. Yeah. But what you, what you're talking about is, A lot of people don't understand this, that a lot of lids and a lot of cups and a lot of things that you wouldn't associate with that material are made with polystyrene, right? And you are replacing them with a polypropylene material, which is significantly easier to recycle.

Jonathan Cage: 7:38

It really is. And, you know, and, and quite frankly, you know, I've, I've been in love with polypropylene , you know, since I got into packaging, so I have a huge, huge passion there. Yeah. But polypropylenes an amazing material. You know, as I'm sure you know, you know, it has such a wide application range you know, from hot fill to aseptic to, you know, freeze at a microwave and all of these things that polypropylene can do, and you can. You know, multiple times. Yeah. You know, then you combine that with some of the specific gravity or the density gain that you get with polypropylene, which is 0.9. So, you know, wow. Floats, right? So, unlike other solid materials, which sinks so. There's opportunities there to use different techniques for capturing and recycling. Mm-hmm.. But to your point, a lot of it's used in single serve applications, you know, from little creamers to, you know quite a number of applications in between.

Cory Connors: 8:35

Yeah, it's important to understand how these materials affect all of us daily. Yes. And we interact with plastic all day long and we don't even realize it. And that's true. Uh, You know, I've been asked oftentimes, why don't we just ban plastic? Well, here's a a thousand reasons. Yeah. Why we can't, and.. Why? Why? We probably won't ever and. What I think is more important, to discuss is what you're working on, which is making it easier to recycle Yes. And, and potentially reuse. Absolutely. Which is wonderful. So well done to you and your team. Oh, thank you. You're calling it X PP ? Is that,

Jonathan Cage: 9:17

is that right? We, it is, it's X PP . You know, we came up, it's a branding thing, but it's actually now our entire platform. So we actually have an X PPP platform so we can run on, you know, various pieces of equipment. You can run it for, you know, quite a, a range of applications. But again, the beauty of it. You know, beautiful organoleptic. So it's really got great taste in odor properties, you know, good. It, it, it looks beautiful. I mean, this is our, this is our X PPP material crystal clear. Yeah. You know, and it's got beautiful contact clarity. So again, you know, polypropylene I think is really the emerging target for, you know, us as an industry to really capture. The value and, you know, the sustainability perspectives of, of polypropylene.

Cory Connors: 10:06

Yeah. Well said. And do you think that it's possible that it will be curbside recyclable

Jonathan Cage: 10:10

someday? I do. I, I really do. I, I think that there is still, you know, Challenges within the collection, especially when you get into single serve cups and things like that. But again, you know, with, if we can capture it, there's a number of different ways that we can go. You know, it could go into durable goods, you know, we could feed it in, into that stream. We could capture it and put it back in a multilayer structure, you know, within the packaging itself. And that's really our ultimate goal is just to create that circularity so that, , we're really. Utilizing the material rather than just, you know, keep on extruding and, and, and making more Pellets. But again, you know, from that perspective.

Cory Connors: 10:54

Well done. One of the things we talk about quite a bit on this show is the need. When you replace materials with new materials to also replace the equipment, is it possible to run this material on equipment that's existing already?

Jonathan Cage: 11:11

It really is. And that's the beauty of what we've developed in the x P platform is the ability to replicate all of the properties of, you know, styrene in those applications but then enable this material to run on platforms with minimal. To, you know, minimal capital cap eggs. Mm-hmm., you know, you get into some of these situations, you know, we are, we manufacture polyester and propylene and, you know, and Ty and a few other ones. Sure. But when you get into some of those materials, Making, changing those machines requires huge capital investment, right? Whereas with the X PPP material, you don't. So it's a minimal investment to convert a machine from Star to ProPlan. And again, you know, our driver. Really more than anything else is to try and come up with something that replicates those properties, but gives you more of a longer term sustainable solution and actually, you know, improve or improve your cost point too. Wow. Yeah, that's good news.. It's good news cuz I've run into many, many people. They're like, oh, you know, I, it's great. Love it, but I'm just not gonna pay for it. Right. And, and with this, you know, you can, if you start to look at the yield gain that you get, say for polypropylene of Tyne, you know, you improve it by 12%, that means 12% more containers out of. Pound or a kilo of right, of ProPlan. And then it gets even more significant when you look at, at p e t and I love p e t, but you know, there is that, that weight associated with that, so.

Cory Connors: 12:46

Hmm. It's an amazing thing to think about the whole system and I think a lot of times people are overlooking, well, yeah, maybe the cost is, is, is less, but they're not realiz. How much they're gonna save in freight. Yes. And how much they're gonna save in logistics costs. If you can reduce your re logistics by 12%, that's a massive savings. Massive. Especially nowadays with the, the cost of freight skyrocketing due to ma massive increase in demand.. Yeah,

Jonathan Cage: 13:20

it's true. No, exactly. You know? More product. It's lighter weight. You know, it, it, it, it, again, it checks so many boxes and that's, you know what, what I really love about polypropylene., Cory Connors: do you think PPP could replace expanded polystyrene eventually, You know, expanded polystyrene? I, you know, I've worked, you know, in the field in with with foamed materials, et cetera. can but you would need to set up your extrusion systems and your process mm-hmm. in order to manufacture that foamed polypropylene. But yes, that is, that's very do.

Cory Connors: 13:58

That could be good news. And if it's easier to recycle, that could be a big market.

Jonathan Cage: 14:03

Yes. Yeah, it could. I mean, I think that there's already those benefits that you get from natural polypropylene, but yes, you can take those to, to, you know refined it even further. You're not gonna get that. So, you know, the e p s is more of a low density expansion, you know, so you get really big cell size and they're kind of random., but then there's a high density foaming process that, that I've been involved in over the years for yogurt cups and things like that, you know, where you, you know, have what's called a high density foaming, so mm-hmm. But again, you know, there is even more opportunity you know, when we look at the material. I'm amazed by

Cory Connors: 14:40

the world of packaging. It's every episode I learn 10 new things and it's, it's, it's incredible no matter how long I do this, so. Right. Well, keep,

Jonathan Cage: 14:48

keep going.. You know, you know, you know, it's kind of my mantras. I love to learn every day. Yeah.

Cory Connors: 14:54

Well me too., we do you have any interesting stories about the process that you went through and, and how this kind of exciting journey took.

Jonathan Cage: 15:02

We, we do you know, as I had said, we started, you know, looking for the proverbial unicorn you know, several years ago. And, you know, once we got to that point, it was really, really exciting because we said, okay, well now we've got a material that we believe has very similar properties to Palestinian. Now what do we do with it? And so, you know, it's like, okay, so we started off doing thermoforming experiments on tooling that was built for polystyrene and perfect. The beauty about this. It shrinks the same. And that's one of the big challenges with ProPlan is shrink. That's great. And heat. And so as we were going along, you know, doing the development, we're doing great. We got through phase one, get into phase two, we're on a form full seal machine. Literally left the trial and we're sitting waiting for our plane and. Covid hit and . Wow. So it was like, wow, you know, we were really on a roll, which in some ways was kind of a blessing in disguise because it gave us more time to develop the data that we really needed to prove out what this material was capable of. And so, you know, it's there, there's you know, we've been traveling to, to Europe. Got great stories of getting lost in various countries and making it around the periph ric in Paris and, you know, in heavy traffic. But it's been a really exciting, exciting journey., Cory Connors: that's And so you have been working on this in, in other parts of the world? Yes. We're working on, like I had mentioned, you know, right now we've got trials going on on six continents. Wow. So we're, you know, we're shipping out of the states. We're opening it up to licensing opportunities as well, because we really want to get this technology out there. We truly believe that on a global basis, this really could, could demonstrate some significant value and, and, and benefit. So yeah. Yes, we are traveling globally.

Cory Connors: 16:50

Excellent. I think about this quite a bit. What, how do we solve this issue we have where we need to recycle? And it makes more and more sense to me the more that I think about it, that we should use fewer types of materials. Oh, yes. And really, really narrow down like, okay, here's the three, or here's the, the four that we're right, that. And, and we're gonna make these fit into these molds. Yes. So that we can recycle them and so that they are valuable. One other thing I wanted to ask is about P C r Uhhuh . Have you have, have you tried this material with higher P C R contents?

Jonathan Cage: 17:30

Well, we, we can, I mean, you know, the whole, the, the structure that we have, it's a mono multilayer, mono material, mul mono material, multilayer It's hard to say. Yeah., So the you know, incorporating p c R for us is just another layer because we can extrude up to nine layers so we could encapsulate amazing. The, the real challenge, Corey, is, you know, you just mentioned it, you know, a simplification of materials and structures and being able to. Capture those streams. Mm-hmm. You know, there's a, you know, pure cycle and all these guys, they're doing fantastic work on polypropylene and there's lots of coalitions out there that are really, I think doing, you know, the same things. And so I think ultimately, once we are able to get the infrastructure built to be able to capture the single serve, et cetera, Boy, you know, is that, is that an opportunity to, to, to just, you know, shoot off in a, in a new direction for, for collecting it? That's

Cory Connors: 18:28

so true. And it's cart before the horse oftentimes. Right? We you have to make the material, you have to figure out the process. Yeah. But then how do we collect it? Oh, right. Wait that's valuable. Now we need that back. Can you, can you send us how do we in a, but it has to all be the same material. And I'm excited to see companies like AMP Robotics that are able to identify. Plastics through their layers and, and pick them out of a material recycling facility. So I think, I think you're right. It's gonna be easier in the future. It's gonna be required by law in the future, which in my opinion is, is great , to recycle more and more.

Jonathan Cage: 19:10

Absolutely. Corey, I mean, I, I, you know, that's, that's very well said. It's, , we need to do, For our planet, we need to do it for our industry. We need to do it, you know, we need to help educate. We need to build these systems. And I don't think we're that far away., I look at what we do when we go to, you know, the conferences, et cetera, and it's always inspiring to me is, , to listen to, you know, everything that, that, that, you know, people are working on, et cetera, and, , continuing to, to really drive solutions.

Cory Connors: 19:39

Yeah. Excellent. And well said is, is there a specific brand out there that you're really like, Hey, we worked on this and it was a really, we were really proud of it, or is that something you can share with us?

Jonathan Cage: 19:51

Well, you know, on a specific brand basis, , what I, what I can do though is I can tell you, you know, in the yogurt world, we've been working with, you know, some of the big CPGs and it's just been such a pleasure working with them. You know, they get it, they understand it. They've made significant commitments for sustainability through 2020 4, 25, and that's coming like a freight train. Yeah. And, and so, , it's just so exciting to work within the industry, the engineers, the packaging, , teams, et cetera, and the, and the plants, , in saying, Hey, Here's something new that could really be, an opportunity for you guys to Right, to hit, to hit those goals. Right. You know, and again, as we had mentioned earlier, you know, with, with not such a significant capital investment, Right. Some of the guys out there. And then you prove

Cory Connors: 20:40

the success and it works. And then, and then this company talks to that company and says, Hey, have you tried this? Right? What if we bought this material together and we both used it? Yeah. What, you know, our costs would go down. Right. Things like that. Yes. You know, you start a buying group and, and then all it's, it's way more sustainable for every.

Jonathan Cage: 21:00

It is, it is. Yeah. That, that's our goal. That's, that's my dream. My vision is to, you know, is to get this out there so that we can, you know, we can, we can, we, we can build that.

Cory Connors: 21:10

Yes. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Jonathan. This has been really awesome. What, what's the best way for us to get in

Jonathan Cage: 21:16

touch with you? You can, you, you can reach out to us on LinkedIn. We're on Instagram or you can reach us@ipg.co. So , it's a little bit of a different thing there, but yeah, so any of those you know, or please, you know, reach out directly to me. Would love to have a chat. And, you know, truly a pleasure. I was really looking forward to, you know to getting together with you and hopefully, you know, as we continue to drive this material solution and, you know, we can jump on again and maybe give you some updates.

Cory Connors: 21:45

That sounds wonderful. Yes, I'd love to. See how things have pro progressed over six months or a year. It's been a fun part of this podcast, so thanks again. Right. Appreciate it.

Jonathan Cage: 21:55

Okay, pleasure. Thank you. Looking forward to it. Thank you, sir. Take care.