Download ESSI – the first Finnish circular economy carrier bag is the best

ESSI – the first Finnish circular economy carrier bag
is the best choice for the environment and for Finland
Amerplast is launching together with Ekokem a new carrier bag, called ESSI circular bag which is a carrier
bag partly made from plastic packaging waste collected from Finnish households. ESSI – the first Finnish
circular bag is the best choice for environment and for Finland. It is a concrete example of Finnish circular
economy in action.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY is a model where materials
circulate in society and can be used again. Amerplast
and Ekokem have built a base for the Finnish circular
economy of the plastics and the circular bag is the
concrete example of this.
THE BEST CHOICE for environment and for Finland
is to choose ESSI circular bag at grocery store. Today
Finns are using on average 55 plastic carrier bags
annually per person. In Europe the annual carrier bag
consumption is on average 198 carrier bags per person.
ESSI CIRCULAR BAG is carbon neutral and has the
smallest CO2 footprint compared to any other carrier bag
in grocery store. It is one of the first Finnish products
that is manufactured from post-consumer plastic thus it
reduces significantly the need for virgin raw materials.
Plastic recycling has a great role in reducing greenhouse
gas emissions.
ESSI can be reused in many ways at homes. It is
always better to recycle plastic bags than to burn them
as energy. As the final step of the reuse, ESSI can be
utilized as a garbage bag, which removes the need for
separate garbage bags. When returned to Rinki eco
take-back points, plastic bags are reused as a raw
material for new circular bags.
Amerplast manufactures carrier
bags that are made of up to 95%
recycled material. It is best for the
environment to reuse plastic as
a raw material before eventually
using it as energy.
PLASTIC
REFINERY
CIRCULAR
BAG
HOUSE
HOME
Ekokem’s CIRCO® recyclates
are manufactured from separately
collected household plastic
waste and industrial, retail and
agricultural waste plastics at
Riihimäki Finland.
STORE
START
FINISH
www.kiertokassi.fi
ESSI encourages further collection
and recycling of plastic. Annually
in Finland there are 117 000 tonnes
of plastic in consumer packaging.
There are around 500 Rinki eco
take-back points for recycling
the packaging. The collection of
household packaging waste is
organized by Suomen Uusiomuovi
and Rinki Ltd.
ESSI is the answer to conscious
customer demand. Customers can
choose ESSI circular bag in 2017.
The Ecolexobag project by VTT Technical Research
Centre of Finland indicates that increasing the
percentage of recycled material further decreases
a plastic bag’s carbon dioxide emissions.
ESSI – the best choice for carrier bag proven by research
Optikassi research* showed that carrier bags made from recycled plastics were a better choice than a cotton
bag, paper bag or biodegradable bag. Now Amerplast has launched ESSI that is even better for environment
since it is partly made from recycled plastic packaging waste collected from households:
•
Minimum 45% of its recycled raw materials come from household plastic packaging waste. This raw material
has a smaller carbon footprint compared to virgin raw materials.
•
Minimum 45% of its recycled raw materials come from industrial sources.
In Finland 32100kg of greenhouse gases per household were produced in 2017.
The emissions of carrier bags make about 0,06% of annual emissions of one household.
OptiKassi research shows the superiority of recycled carrier bag
Environmental effects of shopping bag
other than climate effect *
Plastic
Recycled plastic
Cotton
Biodegradable plastic
Paper
Relation between smallest
and largest value
Nonrenewable
energy (MJ)
Water
consumption
(litres)
Land
usage
(m2)
1,3
0,12
0,31
In order to reach the same level in greenhouse gas
emissions than of one recycled carrier bag (60%
recycled materials) you need to use:
~251 times
cotton bag
0,0009
~6 times
biodegradable bag
0,08
0,0009
~4 times
paper bag
21
357
0,8
~4 times
plastic bag made from virgin materials
0,88
0,13
0,01
1
1,1
0,001
70
4500
900
The annual climate change effects of
carrier bags kg CO2 equiv.
1,2 Recycled plastic
2,4 Cotton
2,8 Paper
3,6 Plastic
Circular bag containing over 90% of recycled materials
from which around 50% is recycled material made from
consumer packaging waste is clearly an even better
choice.
Can the carrier bag be reused multiple times, are extra
garbage bags needed and how it eventually will be
recycled have an effect on its final climate change
effects. There are also differences of the carrying
capacities and volumes which have an effect on the
amount of goods you can carry in one bag.
4,8 Biodegradable plastic
The above examines the probable value (median) of
annual climate change effects of studied carrier bags
(cotton bag is used 1-2 times and other bags are
used 100 times).
By 88% probability the recycled carrier bag is a better
choice than paper and cotton bags and by 100%
probability it is a better choice compared to plastic and
biodegradable bags.
* Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) and the Technical University of Lappeenranta executed OptiKassi study. The comparative study published in
2009 examines the life cycle impacts of the shopping bags used in Finnish retail sector with an emphasis on greenhouse gas emissions.
AMERPLAST, founded in Tampere, Finland 1952, is a forerunner in sustainable packaging with AmerGreen
and transforming the flexible packaging industry into an environmentally sound business. Company started
manufacturing of recycled carrier bags already in 1995. Amerplast has around 400 employees.