MONOAIR™ is a mono-material protective soft-fruit punnet which has: • No bubble padding • Is made of 50% rPET • Facilitates recycling, reducing waste to landfill/incineration • Has been downgauged to further reduce plastic content
The project was motivated by the challenge of recycling standard soft-fruit punnets that have a glued LDPE bubble-lined bottom to prevent bruising and food waste. Most consumers don't separate the lining before disposal, so thousands of glue and liner-contaminated punnets end up in landfill or incineration, wasting valuable food-grade rPET.
The solution was to create a new punnet with MONOAIR™ cushion technology that provides the same protection without additional padding. The structure of the new punnet has also been downgauged compared to the previous standard punnet, and now weighs 15.07g, compared to the previous 16.6g, saving 1.53g of plastic per punnet. The new MONOAIR™ punnet is lightweight, rigid, resistant to fruit juices, and still allows a 360-degree view of attractive fruit inside while preventing bruising and food waste (a benefit proven in large customer trials). It simplifies recycling for consumers, who can toss the whole punnet into their Kerbside bin knowing it is fully recyclable through low-energy mechanical processes throughout the robust recycling infrastructure for rigid PET/rPET across the UK and Ireland. MONOAIR™ helps retailers meet the UK Plastics Pact targets of making plastic packaging 100% reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025 and keeps precious food-grade rPET in the circular economy, which is even more important due to the UK Plastic Tax.
Based on Waddington Europe's 2023 sales estimates* for all soft fruit punnet sizes made with MONOAIR™ cushion technology and downgauged compared to 2022 traditional punnets with bubble padding, the benefits are:
- 164 tonnes less plastic used by downgauging and removal of the bubble pad.
- Reduced GHG emissions equal to 507.24** MTCo2 equivalent per annum.
- Improved recyclability without the need to separate a bubble pad from the container.
- Better quality recyclate from a rendered mono-material. Innovations such as MONOAIR™ seek to help increase the amount of PET/rPET pots, tubs, and tray inputs into MRFs in the future, keeping this precious resource within the circular economy and out of landfill. According to the WRAP [2014, Banbury, WRAP Plastics Compositional Analysis at UK MRFs] report, 22% of total plastic MRF inputs are composed of pots, tubs, and trays (PTT), and of this figure, only 36% are PET. *Please note our sales forecast estimate is confidential, and we are unable to make this available for public consumption. If proof is required, please contact us directly. ** Calculated based on ecoinvent transparent lifecycle inventory database https://ecoinvent.org/