January 16, 2026 15:03

With the start-up last summer of Indaver’s Plastics2Chemicals chemical recycling plant in Antwerp, the closed-loop recovery of food packaging made of rigid and foamed polystyrene — such as yoghurt pots or trays collected via kerbside sorting — has become a concrete reality.

The first extruded foamed polystyrene (XPS) packs containing about 10% styrene from depolymerization appeared on Colruyt supermarket shelves last October, with initial volumes equal to 66 tonnes per year of recycled content; specifically, these are dark grey trays used to pack fresh meat (in the photo).

“In 2023, Colruyt was the first chain to stop using black foam trays, so that empty packaging placed in the PMD bags could be correctly sorted and therefore recycled,” said Ludo Vanderelst, Responsible Buyer at Colruyt Group. “Today, we’re the first to reuse recycled material from foam trays and yoghurt pots in our packaging. This means we need fewer and fewer new raw materials for our packaging, which reduces our environmental impact.”
 “The trays look exactly the same, and are just as safe for your meat. In addition, they can be perfectly recycled all over again via the PMD bag,” he added.

The Plastics2Chemicals depolymerisation plant (pictured) has a capacity of 26,000 tonnes per year. In the summer of 2025, it began operating at industrial scale to recover polystyrene and extruded foamed polystyrene waste sorted from the yellow bag system (known as PMD in Belgium).
From this year, it will also start recycling packaging films, such as snack packs and outer wraps.