The Centre of Excellence driving materials innovation
Manufacturers worldwide are accelerating their sustainability commitments. However, pushing sustainability to create commercial products requires new materials to pass technical standards and industry benchmarks. As the recycling industry faces its own pressures, manufacturers must build resilience into their material sourcing strategies while maintaining the processing efficiency and quality that large-scale production demands.
Leading the way, from laboratory testing to commercial production is Essentra Components' Centre of Excellence in Kidlington, UK. Last year was a year of progress in sustainable materials development for the innovators in the UK’s southeast – completing 68 trials across recycled and biomaterial alternatives and successfully transitioning innovations from testing to production lines.
A year of intensive material development
In 2025, Essentra’s Centre of Excellence ramped up its trials on a range of recycled and biomaterial alternatives, thinking outside the box to create sustainable solutions.
"The biomaterials are definitely a focus, but when we're looking at what to trial, we take into consideration which materials we use most across the Essentra group," explains David Nulty, Development Engineer at Essentra Components.
Because of this, Essentra has built a strategic focus on alternatives for polymers used across the organisation’s global sites. “"LDPE usage is probably the biggest priority right now, as it’s our biggest material used globally,” says David. “It’s followed by nylons, PAs and polyprops.”
Of the 68 trials, four materials successfully completed the testing process and were presented to the business for manufacturing use. Each material had an in-depth evaluation, and one of the four materials, a recycled nylon, has now transitioned from development to active production.
“In Barcelona, Essentra has introduced recycled nylon into one of its automotive parts,” David confirms. "That was a really big deal, we were proud to achieve that."
Staying consistent through supply chain instability
While technical development progresses, the recycling industry faces complications. Several large recycling facilities in the UK closed during 2025 (Viridor closed its Avonmouth mechanical polymers recycling plant in 2024, and its Rochester, Kent mechanical recycling centre in 2025, and Biffa closed its Washington, Sunderland plastics recycling plant in 2025), creating supply chain vulnerabilities for manufacturers.
“It's been a tough year for the people who are recycling this material,” David explains. “It means you have to look at your supply chains, and ensure you have good alternatives in case the situation with suppliers does change."
David also points out how the production of Post-Industrial Recycled (PIR) materials – commercial materials which have been recycled – depends on wasted material still being produced. For example, medical device manufacturers have stringent validation requirements, and often they don’t reprocess their own manufacturing waste, creating a relatively stable PIR supply stream. But David says as overall manufacturing efficiencies improve, PIR availability may decline.
“PIR is an inefficiency of manufacturing," notes David. "If a big company improves their in-house manufacturing processes and removes that waste, then that waste isn't there to buy and reprocess."
Markets are also shifting towards blended solutions rather than pure recycled content.
“It does seem to be an industry standard to blend, giving yourself 30% or 50% recycled content," observes David. "Many of the packaging taxes in Europe now require minimum recycled content in every part, otherwise there are extra charges. Even distributors are coming forward with blended options.”
The goal: Like for like
When evaluating new sustainable materials, the Centre of Excellence's primary consideration is processing compatibility with Essentra’s existing manufacturing infrastructure.
"You need to look at how closely it processes to what we already have at the moment," explains David. "With some of our larger sites like Kidlington, the manufacturing processes are set up at vast scale, with over hundreds of machines. You've got big processes that are very difficult to change."
Recycled materials, particularly PCR, often exhibit lower melt flow than virgin alternatives, making them more difficult to process. "If you can push the original material into a cavity at a certain pressure, it’s usually more difficult to push the recycled material through, which is a problem,” says David.
Before materials even reach the Centre of Excellence for testing, extensive groundwork evaluates their compatibility with Essentra's manufacturing requirements.
From carpet to components
Essentra's work in 2025 with polypropylene recycled from carpet demonstrates how consumer waste streams can be transformed into industrial components.
“We're working with a polyprop from reused carpet," says David. "It's darker in colour because recycled plastic often has a different colour gradient, but functionally it’s really good.”
The material comes from a Northampton-based supplier that exclusively sources polypropylene carpets. The appeal of this material extends beyond its technical performance, as it can also be used to demonstrate the Centre of Excellence’s research. When investors visit the Centre of Excellence, David uses their carpet-sourced components to show the impact of recycling. “I pick up a polypropylene piece made from the carpets, and ask people to guess where it came from – I say you stand on it at home,” David says.
“It illustrates how amazing it is that you can make something like this, from an object which looks and feels so different.”
Seaweed: an important direction for long-term sustainability
Biomaterials represent an avenue for future research and development, and Essentra's ongoing relationship with Simbiotex focuses on seaweed.
“They grow seaweed in farms in multiple regions around the world,” says David. "It absorbs lots of carbon dioxide. It doesn’t have an impact on the food chain or surrounding ecosystem, which is ideal.
Seaweed-based materials also offer promise because they actively remove carbon from the atmosphere as they grow, creating a circular system. "If the oil's already in the ground and you're taking it out and creating carbon, versus growing something where you're taking carbon out of the atmosphere as it grows – there's that circular motion," says David.
However, biomaterial development requires careful due diligence. "You have to be very careful," David warns. "You think you've found this new wonder alternative, but then you dig and find that while it has these benefits, it might be causing environmental disruption further down the line. You're trying to do the right thing, but there's cause and effect.”
Changing perceptions: embracing the aesthetic of recycled content
As recycled materials enter commercial catalogues, Essentra is working to shift customer perceptions about appearance. Many PCR materials have inherent colour characteristics that distinguish them from their virgin counterparts.
“We introduced a new PCR last year and process-wise it's fantastic. It's one of the best materials to process,” says David. "But it is a darker colour, so it doesn't come as a natural. There are a few colours you can change it to – black obviously, and reds and blues work quite well.”
Rather than viewing this as a limitation, David sees it as an opportunity to celebrate recycled content. “I actually think that's a nice selling point. I don't think recycled parts should look perfect. That's the whole point of it. We should be proud of the fact that we're using other parts that have already done what they've done, and we've given them new life.”
He says this perspective is helping Essentra build commercial success from its sustainability research and development, pointing to manufacturers who are now including entire catalogue sections committed to recycled products.
2026 priorities: material focus and closing the loop
Formal objectives for 2026 are still being finalised, and David says the Centre of Excellence has several priorities.
Overall, he’s expecting that 2026 will see a similar number of trials to the previous year. "I have pride in the sustainable work we do," David reflects. "Sometimes it might sound a bit gimmicky, but it's not. It’s all about building closed-loop systems. If we can reuse what we're already using, the efficiencies are in there. It's not a gimmick when it improves wider manufacturing."
The ultimate goal is achieving true circularity. "Ideally you want whatever you're making to go out into the wilderness, do what it does, and then be recycled. Then you use the same material again," says David. "Metals do that – aluminium from a car is crushed, melted and reused. There’s no reason why plastic can’t do the same.”
For David and the team keeping Essentra’s Centre of Excellence running, this year will be another opportunity to build on the sustainability successes implemented to date. David says promising results reflect Essentra’s hard work and ongoing efforts to lead sustainability in the industry, and that manufacturers globally all need to play their part for meaningful progress towards a closed-loop future.
“The early stages of any change require real investment, time and patience," says David. "But you get the fruits of your labour later on."