Value-chain team creates new high-barrier recyclable PE food pouch

Five different companies throughout the packaging supply chain have joined forces to create what they say is new, more sustainable flexible packaging for food.

The companies — Dow, Syntegon, Comexi, Plastchim-T and Ticinoplast — say the high-barrier mono-material structured polyethylene pouch is not only functional, but designed to enable recyclability in PE-streams.

Conventional multi-layer flexible pouches are unable to be recycled, as the different layers are made from different materials, each performing a different function. These layers are unable to be separated at the end of life, which means that this type of packaging is generally consigned to landfill or is incinerated.

The solution created by the team in this project offers the necessary functionality provided by those multiple materials – for example, oxygen and water vapor barrier, printability, toughness, stiffness, excellent gloss and clarity – without compromising recyclability. The companies say it is possible to tune the barrier layers to achieve the application performance, said the partners. Moreover, the combined expertise input from across the chain led to the new pouch design being developed that could run at speed on existing machinery, offering the properties and quality required and hence providing a commercially-viable solution to the market.

“By working collaboratively with all project members, we’ve been able to accelerate a new offering that has been designed with recyclability in mind from the outset. This is not a concept or a project anymore, this is reality,” said Jaroslaw Jelinek, global marketing manager for oriented PE technologies, Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics.

The solution developed combines a high-performance, tenter-frame biaxially-oriented polyethylene (TF-BOPE) film developed by Ticinoplast and produced at Plastchim-T, with an enhanced barrier lamination film produced at Dow’s Pack Studios Tarragona.

“BOPE is a rising technology and thanks to projects like this, companies can come together and create new polyethylene films that can be customized to achieve the best possible efficiency and viable solutions for consumers,” said Paolo Rossi, CEO and mono-material flexible packaging engineer of Ticinoplast.

“Mutual efforts of all the participants have brought us here and we are confident that by investing in the first hybrid BOPE/BOPP line, we will manage to develop and present to the market new products for many other applications where recyclability will remain the main focus,” added Plastchim-T owner, Aydin Faik.

High-quality, solvent-free, offset printing was demonstrated on a CI8 press at Comexi where the solvent-free lamination step was also performed. Using sustainable Electron Beam technology in the printing process allows a 100 percent reduction of volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions and 40% less energy in comparison with conventional solvent-based printing technologies, Felip Ferrer, brand manager and business development manager of the offset printing business unit at Comexi, pointed out.

The packaging was created at high speed on Syntegon’s innovative vertical form-fill-seal (VFFS) machinery with an output of 80 pouches per minute, which makes it a commercially viable solution. The result is a flexible, reclosable pouch with a zipper and see-through window, excellent sealing, high barrier and good print optics — designed for recyclability.

Dow said designing innovative packaging with recyclability in mind from the outset is a key part its sustainability strategy. The design of recyclable, flexible packaging through collaborations such as these are important if the industry is to meet European Union regulations of having 100 percent recyclable packaging in the market by 2025.