Efficient pump for reuse

Tri­Mas Pack­ag­ing Group com­pa­ny “Rieke” has fur­thered its com­mit­ment to inno­v­a­tive solu­tions in the area of sus­tain­abil­i­ty with the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of the patent­ed MonoTM-2e pump, a recy­clable dis­penser pump. This inno­va­tion, which is in pro­duc­tion today, is the first ful­ly recy­clable pump made from a sin­gle mate­r­i­al on the mar­ket. After near­ly a year of prov­ing pro­duc­tion and com­mer­cial robust­ness, the Mono-2e is com­mer­cial­ly avail­able and ready for advanced design appli­ca­tions for its con­sumer pack­aged goods (CPG) cus­tomers, serv­ing the cos­met­ics, per­son­al care and oth­er end mar­kets with Love Beau­ty and Plan­et by Unilever. Rieke’s advance­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion in recy­clable dis­pensers is a sig­nif­i­cant break­through in pack­ag­ing for the beau­ty and per­son­al care industry.

The sin­gle-poly­mer pump was devel­oped to facil­i­tate the recy­cling process for dis­pensers, which was request­ed by both CPG cus­tomers and con­sumers. As a result, the glob­al design and engi­neer­ing teams con­ceived the Mono-2e. Until then, pumps con­sist­ed of a mix­ture of mate­ri­als includ­ing met­al springs, polypropy­lene, poly­eth­yl­ene and oth­ers. This range of com­bined mate­ri­als requires spe­cial infra­struc­tures for prop­er recy­cling. For exam­ple, the met­al spring in a tra­di­tion­al pump is detri­men­tal to the plas­tics recy­cling stream. There­fore, a con­sumer would have to dis­pose of the cap before recy­cling. The inno­va­tor in the indus­try has thus devel­oped its mono­ma­te­r­i­al pump with­out com­pro­mis­ing qual­i­ty, for­mu­la­tion com­pat­i­bil­i­ty, aes­thet­ics or performance.

The first monomaterial pump already on the market

Today, the dis­penser, made from a sin­gle type of poly­mer, is the first com­mer­cial­ly viable option avail­able to cus­tomers and is already in use by a glob­al CPG com­pa­ny as an inte­gral part of the pack­ag­ing for one of its major new brands.

“Our goal was to deliv­er a pump that is not only made from the same poly­mer, but also from the same poly­mer type to facil­i­tate the flow of recy­cling in the com­ing cir­cu­lar economy.”

- Howard Man­ning, vice pres­i­dent and gen­er­al manager

This was a unique sim­pli­fi­ca­tion in plas­tics, lead­ing to a cir­cu­lar econ­o­my mod­el that focus­es on opti­miz­ing the down­stream stream at the end of the pro­duc­t’s life cycle. The com­plete homo­gene­ity of the recy­cled poly­mer enhances per­for­mance and qual­i­ty, while it expands the appli­ca­tion pos­si­bil­i­ties of the fol­low­ing high qual­i­ty prod­ucts mold­ed from post­con­sumer resin. ”

This is an inno­v­a­tive mod­el for shift­ing the waste val­ue chain, where the prod­uct is not only designed to per­form when used by the con­sumer, but also opti­mizes the regrind sup­ply for the next PCR user by pro­vid­ing the best sta­bil­i­ty in terms of vis­cos­i­ty and process. As a result, we have cre­at­ed a high-val­ue stream in the cir­cu­lar econ­o­my,” com­ments Fabio Salik, pres­i­dent of Tri­Mas Packaging.

Award-winning, revolutionary design.

The prod­uct was named a 2020 Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Pack­ag­ing Coali­tion Inno­va­tor Award final­ist for this rev­o­lu­tion­ary sin­gle-poly­mer design, as the patent­ed pump con­sists of six parts, all made from a sin­gle mate­r­i­al. It is 100% recy­clable and designed to mas­sive­ly reduce its envi­ron­men­tal footprint.

It is designed to be recy­cled more eas­i­ly than ever before. This allows clo­sure and dis­pens­ing sys­tem man­u­fac­tur­er, Rieke, to use PCR with the abil­i­ty to incor­po­rate up to 100% post-con­sumer resin, polypropy­lene or poly­eth­yl­ene into caps or clo­sures. This gives each pump the best chance at a recy­cled sec­ond life. Many thou­sands of con­sumers have already pur­chased per­son­al care prod­ucts from Unilever’s major glob­al brand Love Beau­ty and Plan­et, which are designed around such a concept.

The com­pa­ny has the expe­ri­ence and resources to offer its cus­tomers a wide range of recy­clable dis­pensers to help them achieve their ambi­tious sus­tain­abil­i­ty goals.