Sustainability is both a challenge and an opportunity to the flexible packaging industry. Recyclable pouches made from mono-plastic multilayer structures, utilizing new resins and techniques, appear to be major competitors against glass, metal, and multi-material film structures.
Demand for mono-materials in packaging has been growing as the industry moves from a linear to a circular economy. What are the challenges and possible solutions of mono-plastic pouches?
What lies behind the growth in the use of mono-plastics in the flexible packaging?
Nowadays, there is a paradigm change, from a linear to a circular economy, to ensure there’s enough food, water and prosperity in 2050. There’s a worldwide ban on unsustainable packaging materials with a timeline set forth. For example, according to the European Strategy for plastics in circular economy, in 2030 all plastic packaging must be recyclable. Taking this into consideration, the packaging industry has to make great efforts to reach the 2030 date with completely recyclable pouch packaging to reduce the environmental damage caused plastic could do.
A few years ago, the 70% of the packaging structures for laminated pouches were multilayer structures, because ‘there isn´t a single material with the desired properties’ the packaging should have for its final application. Nowadays, it has been necessary to change packaging structures to mono-material that can be recycled and thus comply with the guidelines set by the EC for the 2030.
What are the sustainability benefits of mono-plastics?
Mono-plastic structures benefits are based on their recyclability. Mono-plastic packaging can be collected and enter a waste management flow to obtain raw material from a residue for a different application, thus contributing to the circular economy.
What are the challenges and limitations of mono-plastics for packaging applications?
Mono-plastic structures for packaging application challenges are based on the improvement of barrier properties. Other materials commonly used in the mono-plastic packaging structures like adhesives and coating need to have functional properties apart from their basic properties. In the case of adhesives and coating there is a big challenge to improve the barrier properties.
What solutions are available to solve the issue? In the case of improving barrier performance, the most typically used way is to use EVOH.
Can EVOH PE be 100% recyclable if it was disposed of in the normally recycling stream?
There is a common belief that products made of more than 95% mono-plastics are considered recyclable. This view also echoes with some popular findings that EVOH with a threshold of up to 5% of the total weight of the PE film has a minor impact on the recycled material, and an EVOH concentration above 5% by weight will be treated as not compatible with recycling.
What are popular applications of mono-plastic recyclable pouches?
Mono-plastic recyclable pouches are widely being used for coffee packaging, a variety of food packaging bags, and even spout pouches for beverages. And mono-plastic pouches can be made into all pouch forms including stand up pouch, flat bottom pouch, side gusset pouch, flat pouch as well as roll films.
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