PLASTIC POUCHES | EVENT PREVIEW
Plastic pouches offer
environmental benefit because of their light weight, but they must be made easily
recyclable – such as by using mono-material designs – if they are to become truly sustainable
Standing up to be counted
Delegates at the recent Plastic Pouches conference in Vienna, organised by Applied Market Informa- tion, heard a lot about sustainability. Graham Houlder, managing director of Sloop
Consulting – who coordinates the Ceflex initiative to boost recycling in flexible packaging – told delegates that it was vital for flexible packaging to be part of the ‘circular economy’ – and that plastic pouches should be included within that. “Some plastic pouches are already being
recycled today,” he said. He cited mono-material PE and PP pouches that
were being positively sorted in Germany and several other markets. If there is no PE or PP stream, they are sorted with mixed polyolefin. Multi-material pouches that use aluminium foil can also be sorted, using eddy current separation followed by pyrolysis of the aluminium and using the energy from the plastic. “We estimate the European market at 23 billion
pouches,” he said. “Dog and cat food accounts for 49%, food for 38% and beverage for 12%.” Some are already made from mono-materials, so
are prime candidates for recycling. Some, such as pouches for dry pet food, will need to be rede- signed to mono-materials.
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Proper design Achim Grefenstein, senior vice president of group R&D at Constantia Flexibles, explained how his company is making pouch laminates more sustain- able. At two locations it is using thinner packaging (with equivalent performance) and avoiding volatile substances. He also pointed out the importance of packaging redesign. “Thirty percent of plastic packaging needs fundamental redesign before it can be reused or recycled,” he said.
Some designs – such as those for packaging
nuts – rely on multi-layer barrier packaging in order to prevent oxidation and product deterioration. “PET and PE are incompatible, and thus not
easily recyclable,” he said. A similar problem was seen in coffee packaging – which also contains aluminium – though he said it could be recycled in the metal stream if the aluminium content is high enough. Again, the use of both PE and PET makes recycling more difficult. A simpler solution is seen with chocolate or crisp
packaging, which comprises BOPP and while PE. “BOPP and PE are both polyolefins and thus
compatible – though pure PP or pure PE would be better,” he said.
� June 2018 | FILM & SHEET EXTRUSION 47
Main image: Petfood is the most common application of plastic pouches
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