PLASTIC POUCHES | MATERIALS


Single-minded: pouches embrace mono-materials


Developments in pouches include a pan-European project to develop a high-barrier product, downgauged and mono-material films, and increasing use of recyclate


Switching from multi-material to mono-material solutions is an ongoing trend within flexible packaging – and plastic pouches are no different. At the recent Flexible Packaging Innovation and


Recycling conference in Milwaukee, USA – organ- ised by AMI – Ryan Breese, senior application development and technical service engineer at Lyondell Basell, explained how HDPE and orienta- tion are being increasingly adopted in pouches. “Flexible packaging is at an inflection point, with


trade-offs between performance, cost and recycla- bility becoming more visible,” he said. While traditional multi-material structures add performance advantages, they also pose recycling challenges – which can be addressed with oriented polyolefin film, he said.


www.filmandsheet.com Machine-direction orientation (MDO) and


biorientation – including processes such as preheating, drawing, annealing and cooling – changes film properties. “Orientation improves stiffness, strength and


barrier, but reduces toughness,” he said. Oriented PE is applicable to both general-use and barrier pouches, he said. Several potential challenges – linked to the lower thermal stability of oriented PE – can also be solved. For instance, film shrinking and distorting in the seal area can be addressed by increasing total HDPE content in the structure, or adequately annealing the film to cut inherent stresses. Similarly, film sticking to seal jaws can be remedied by increasing HDPE content in the print web outer layer, using Teflon seal jaws or


Main image: Many pouches now use monomaterial oriented


polyolefin film


July/August 2026 | FILM & SHEET EXTRUSION 19


IMAGE: SUEDPACK


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