PLASTIC POUCHES | MATERIALS


Light work: latest in plastic pouches


Pouches are increasingly replacing other forms of packaging because of their weight-saving benefits – but must embrace mono-material designs in order to boost sustainability


One benefit of plastic packaging is its very low weight – and this is particularly true of plastic pouches. Thin, robust and convenient, they can store around 50 times their own weight in produce, which cannot be said of metal cans or glass jars. Pouches sit within the enormous – and growing


– flexible packaging market. Salvatore Pellingra, VP of global packaging design at ProAmpac, told delegates that flexible packaging could become a US$100bn market by 2031. Balanced against this is the need for sustainability. “Almost 40% of European plastics conversion is


packaging,” he said. One approach – in which pouches are vital – is


the idea of refillable or returnable packaging. There are four possible approaches here. “Shipping the refillable container back and forth is the least sustainable option,” said Pellingra.


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Instead, primary packaging for a product like liquid soap is retained – and new product is purchased in the form of a ‘refill’ pouch. Here, the idea is to re-use – for example – an HDPE bottle. In a typical example, the refill pouch is around 25% the weight of a new bottle.


Lightweighting is also common for food, with


products such as olives, nuts and babyfood moving from glass packaging to pouches. Creating mono-material pouches is also important from a recycling perspective, he said.


Technical challenges Jean-Emile Potaufeux, technical manager at Plastics Recyclers Europe, said that pouches can be designed to satisfy recyclability rules. Its Recyclass scheme aims to create rules to assess the overall recyclability of packaging – with help from


July/August 2024 | FILM & SHEET EXTRUSION 23


Main image: Sabic says that mono-material properties such as thermal resistance, in both PE and PP, are important factors in pouches


IMAGE: SABIC


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