NOVA Chemicals and Merlin Plastics Join Forces to Use Curbside Recycling for Consumer Packaging

Agreement will Advance the Plastics Circular Economy with PCR

Calgary, Alberta, Canada , Sept. 01, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today NOVA Chemicals Corporation  (“NOVA Chemicals”), a leading producer of chemicals and plastic resins, announced a long-term agreement with Merlin Plastics Supply Inc. (“Merlin Plastics”), Canada’s largest plastics recycler, to increase the supply of high-quality, post-consumer recyclate (PCR) for consumer packaging. This marks NOVA Chemicals’ entry to the PCR market.

“Plastic has great value and is essential to modern life. NOVA Chemicals is committed to finding new ways to capture its value beyond its first use to drive a plastics circular economy,” said Luis Sierra, president and CEO, NOVA Chemicals. “This partnership with Merlin and our forthcoming suite of PCR-containing resins will help meet our customer and brand owner needs and expand high-quality PCR supply for use in consumer packaging.”

Many of the world’s leading consumer brands have pledged to increase the amount of PCR content in plastic packaging to an average of 25 percent by 2025. To meet this global demand for PCR, NOVA Chemicals and Merlin Plastics have teamed up to repurpose the products consumers place in their blue bins. Today’s recycled polyethylene is mostly used in non-food applications such as detergent bottles and plastic lumber. This partnership will turn high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic recyclate into resin for use in everyday products and packaging including food applications. Finding technical solutions to improve the quality and consistency of PCR will help to advance a circular economy.

“We are excited to combine our three decades of recycling experience with NOVA Chemicals’ industry knowledge and technical expertise to expand the supply of high-value polyethylene PCR in the marketplace,” said Tony Moucachen, president, Merlin Plastics. “With this agreement, we will be able to turn more recycled plastic packaging into valuable new source material for consumer products and packaging,” Moucachen added. This partnership with NOVA is one of several important relationships that Merlin has built with industry leaders to enhance recycling. 

NOVA Chemicals is providing financing for a multi-million-dollar project to accelerate Merlin’s expansion into PCR for food contact applications and, in turn, will secure a reliable supply to offer to its customers. This is one of several collaborations NOVA Chemicals is pursuing to build its PCR offerings with commercial quantities beginning in 2021. Ultimately, NOVA Chemicals plans to offer 100 percent PCR polyethylene and PCR blended with its virgin grades, including high-quality LLDPE, LDPE, and HDPE.

“We expect demand for PCR to increase tenfold in the next five years based on brand owner sustainability commitments,” said Greg DeKunder, vice president, marketing, NOVA Chemicals. “We are excited to continue successfully working with our customers on application development as we enter the PCR market.”

Merlin Plastics, headquartered in Vancouver, has two facilities in British Columbia (BC). Merlin Plastics in Gifford is a state-of-the-art container sortation plant, one of the largest on the West Coast, where the materials from the curbside blue bins collected in BC and elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest get sorted into their respective streams. Merlin Plastics in Delta, BC is a processing plant that transforms the various plastic container packaging into recycled plastic pellet. NOVA Chemicals’ funding will expand the equipment in the Delta facility and enhance Merlin’s processing of recyclate for food packaging applications.

NOVA Chemicals is committed to enabling 100 percent of plastics packaging is recyclable or recoverable by 2030; and 100 percent of plastics packaging is re-used, recycled or recovered by 2040. In addition to these new PCR product offerings, NOVA Chemicals has a ready-to-recycle resin portfolio and R&D expertise to offer comprehensive solutions for companies looking to incorporate PCR into their products. The dedicated PCR team at NOVA Chemicals’ Innovation Centres will support product and application development.

To learn more about this agreement and NOVA Chemicals’ entry to the PCR market, please visit www.novachem.com/pcr. 

Editors and Reporters:

Download digital images and an infographic here. See related news: NOVA Chemicals and Enerkem announced a joint development agreement to explore turning non-recyclable and non-compostable municipal waste into ethylene, a basic building block of plastics.

About NOVA Chemicals Corporation
NOVA Chemicals develops and manufactures chemicals and plastic resins that make everyday life healthier, easier and safer. Our employees work to ensure health, safety, security and environmental stewardship through our commitment to Sustainability and Responsible Care^®. NOVA Chemicals, headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, is wholly-owned ultimately by Mubadala Investment Company of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Visit NOVA Chemicals on the Internet at www.novachemicals.com.

About Merlin Plastics
For the past 30 years, Merlin Plastics has planned, developed, and refined the re-processing of PE, PP, LDPE, and PET.  The company began its recycling business in the late 1980’s out of a 2000 square foot warehouse in Delta, BC. Today, Merlin owns and operates recycling facilities totalling over one million square feet in space with sister plants located in Alberta, Ontario, California and Oregon. Merlin Plastics has been honored to receive various awards over the years including the “Outstanding Contribution to Recycling” award from the Recycling Council of Alberta, as well as an award from the Recycling Council of BC that recognized Merlin Plastics for its “ongoing commitment to the ideals of responsible environmental stewardship in the province of British Columbia.”

Merlin Plastics believes that everyone has a vital role to play: consumers via participation in community recycling efforts, government by developing policies that encourage the use of PCR and incentivizing the building of recycling infrastructure, brand owners by designing packaging for recyclability and using PCR in their packaging, and finally resin manufacturers, converters and recyclers by embracing and supporting this culture of change towards a new market reality. 

Merlin Plastics is dedicated and committed to providing environmental services in an economically efficient, environmentally sound and socially responsible fashion. Visit Merlin Plastics on the Internet at www.merlinplastics.com

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Media inquiries, please contact:
Jennifer Nanz
Director, Communications
E-mail: Jennifer.Nanz@novachem.com

Andie Stiles
Trade Media
E-mail: Andie.Stiles@novachem.com

NOVA Chemicals’ logo is a registered trademark of NOVA Brands Ltd.; authorized use.
Responsible Care^® is a registered trademark of the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada.

Forward-Looking Statements: This news release contains forward-looking statements. By their nature, forward-looking statements require NOVA Chemicals to make assumptions and are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties. NOVA Chemicals’ forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. In addition, the forward-looking statements are made only as of the date of this news release, and except as required by applicable law, NOVA Chemicals undertakes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements to reflect new information, subsequent events or otherwise.

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