Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
P&G Packaging Sustainability Expert Gian Debelder traces the full circularity journey – from sorting blue bags at home in Belgium to a cutting-edge sorting facility and the future polypropylene plant at the Port of Antwerp. This is what Ambition 2030 looks like in practice: not a target on paper, but partnership, technology, and design working together to close the loop on plastic.
Featuring:
• Gian De Belder, Packaging Sustainability Expert – P&G
• Inge De Backer, Corporate Communications Director Europe – P&G
• Liesbeth Gommers (Indaver), Sorting Facility Expert – Belgium
• Wiebe Schipper(PureCycle), VP Operations Europe & Asia
Belgium is one of the world’s leading plastic sorting nations, and that track record shapes how P&G thinks about packaging design. At the Indaver facility, 75,000 tonnes of PMD waste from approximately 3 million households are sorted every year into 16 high-purity material fractions. This shows how everyday actions connect to industrial recycling systems, where impact is created through collaboration across the value chain.
P&G’s packaging relies on four main plastics: HDPE for bottles, PP for caps, LDPE for film applications, and recycled HDPE where it can already be deployed at scale. In Europe, Head & Shoulders bottles already contain 100% recycled HDPE – a proof point that circularity is a current reality, not just a 2030 target. For film applications, switching from multi-material pouches to mono-material LDPE makes sorting significantly cleaner, because what goes in matters as much as what comes out.
Two proprietary technologies are pushing the boundary further. FlexLoop uses a mechanical solvent extraction process to remove printing inks from LDPE film, producing clean flakes suitable for contact-sensitive applications – closing the loop on a material stream that standard mechanical recycling cannot handle. Verso Vita, licensed to PureCycle, dissolves polypropylene from household waste to recover a polymer pure enough to go back into transparent caps. PureCycle’s first European PP recycling plant, built on Verso Vita, is now in development at the NextGen district in the Port of Antwerp.
Together, these technologies and partnerships show that circular packaging is not a single solution but a connected system. Therefore, turning waste into value requires collaboration between households, sorting facilities, technology partners, and product design teams working toward the same goal.
This episode of Stories on the Move show designing for circularity at its best: that is what P&G’s Ambition 2030 is built on.
What you’ll learn:
• How plastic packaging is sorted and recycled in Belgium
• How P&G designs packaging for recyclability
• How Flexloop removes contamination from plastic films
• How VersoVita enables high-quality polypropylene recycling
• How collaboration enables circular packaging systems
Chapters:
00:00 How P&G Recycles Plastic: Flexloop Introduction
00:18 Stories on the Move: Meet Gian De Belder
00:46 Household Recycling: Belgian Blue Bag System
01:34 Sorting Centers: Indaver Material Streams
01:55 Packaging Materials: PE, PP, PET Explained
02:35 Indaver Facility: 75,000 Tonnes Sorted Annually
03:21 P&G Goals: 100% Recyclable Packaging Ambition 2030
03:47 Mono-Material Design: LDPE Pouch Example
04:30 Flexloop Technology: Removing Ink and Contamination
05:15 VersoVita Technology: Dissolution Recycling Explained
06:05 PureCycle Plant: Antwerp NextGen District
06:33 Polypropylene Recycling: From Waste to New Caps
07:55 Circular Packaging: Closing the Loop
#PGSustainability #StoriesOnTheMove #CircularEconomy #PlasticRecycling #Recycling #Circularity
P&G Packaging Sustainability Expert Gian Debelder traces the full circularity journey – from sorting blue bags at home in Belgium to a cutting-edge sorting facility and the future polypropylene plant at the Port of Antwerp. This is what Ambition 2030 looks like in practice: not a target on paper, but partnership, technology, and design working together to close the loop on plastic.
Featuring:
• Gian De Belder, Packaging Sustainability Expert – P&G
• Inge De Backer, Corporate Communications Director Europe – P&G
• Liesbeth Gommers (Indaver), Sorting Facility Expert – Belgium
• Wiebe Schipper(PureCycle), VP Operations Europe & Asia
Belgium is one of the world’s leading plastic sorting nations, and that track record shapes how P&G thinks about packaging design. At the Indaver facility, 75,000 tonnes of PMD waste from approximately 3 million households are sorted every year into 16 high-purity material fractions. This shows how everyday actions connect to industrial recycling systems, where impact is created through collaboration across the value chain.
P&G’s packaging relies on four main plastics: HDPE for bottles, PP for caps, LDPE for film applications, and recycled HDPE where it can already be deployed at scale. In Europe, Head & Shoulders bottles already contain 100% recycled HDPE – a proof point that circularity is a current reality, not just a 2030 target. For film applications, switching from multi-material pouches to mono-material LDPE makes sorting significantly cleaner, because what goes in matters as much as what comes out.
Two proprietary technologies are pushing the boundary further. FlexLoop uses a mechanical solvent extraction process to remove printing inks from LDPE film, producing clean flakes suitable for contact-sensitive applications – closing the loop on a material stream that standard mechanical recycling cannot handle. Verso Vita, licensed to PureCycle, dissolves polypropylene from household waste to recover a polymer pure enough to go back into transparent caps. PureCycle’s first European PP recycling plant, built on Verso Vita, is now in development at the NextGen district in the Port of Antwerp.
Together, these technologies and partnerships show that circular packaging is not a single solution but a connected system. Therefore, turning waste into value requires collaboration between households, sorting facilities, technology partners, and product design teams working toward the same goal.
This episode of Stories on the Move show designing for circularity at its best: that is what P&G’s Ambition 2030 is built on.
What you’ll learn:
• How plastic packaging is sorted and recycled in Belgium
• How P&G designs packaging for recyclability
• How Flexloop removes contamination from plastic films
• How VersoVita enables high-quality polypropylene recycling
• How collaboration enables circular packaging systems
Chapters:
00:00 How P&G Recycles Plastic: Flexloop Introduction
00:18 Stories on the Move: Meet Gian De Belder
00:46 Household Recycling: Belgian Blue Bag System
01:34 Sorting Centers: Indaver Material Streams
01:55 Packaging Materials: PE, PP, PET Explained
02:35 Indaver Facility: 75,000 Tonnes Sorted Annually
03:21 P&G Goals: 100% Recyclable Packaging Ambition 2030
03:47 Mono-Material Design: LDPE Pouch Example
04:30 Flexloop Technology: Removing Ink and Contamination
05:15 VersoVita Technology: Dissolution Recycling Explained
06:05 PureCycle Plant: Antwerp NextGen District
06:33 Polypropylene Recycling: From Waste to New Caps
07:55 Circular Packaging: Closing the Loop
#PGSustainability #StoriesOnTheMove #CircularEconomy #PlasticRecycling #Recycling #Circularity
