FILM | ADDITIVES
Additives are in the spotlight as requirements for packaging, agriculture, and other applications evolve. Innovations focus on sustainability and performance, writes Jennifer Markarian
Breaking through: additives for flexible films
Flexible plastic films have a wide range of uses in packaging, stretch wrap and shrink film, agriculture, and more. With food and non-food packaging as key markets, film design and use are affected by new regulations, such as the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR). New and potential upcoming restrictions in multiple geographic regions on specific additive substances, such as PFAS, are also affecting film formulations. The PPWR received final approval from the
European Parliament in late November 2024, and its rules for the EU include requirements for packaging to be reusable or recyclable by 2030, minimum recycled content standards for plastic packaging, and requirements for packaging to minimise weight and volume. Design for recycling criteria are due to be established by 2028, and by 2030, recyclability will be described by performance grades (A, B, and C) based on the
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weight percentage of the package that is recyclable.
Design for recycling has an important role to play in guiding the industry, said Susannah Owen, AMI Consultant specialising in Flexible Films, in a video interview. In the biaxially oriented film industry, for example, the whole value chain – including materials suppliers and equipment manufacturers – worked together to bring oriented polyethylene (OPE) films to market, where it offers a solution for monomaterial packaging. In the biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) space, there are now monomaterial solutions available even for challenging applications, such as coffee and stand-up-pouches, Owen said. She added that the market is already seeing a shift toward monomaterial flexible packaging formats, such as pouches, which will help meet PPWR requirements. New additives are providing benefits for monomaterial film structures.
Main image: Young melon plantation mulching
� January/February 2025 | COMPOUNDING WORLD 17
IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK/ITMAN__47
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