THE DRIVE FOR 2025: What are the Options for Recycling Barrier Packaging?
As the flexible packaging industry pushes toward its 2025 recyclability goals, this article surveys the industry initiatives and Celplast's own work to make barrier and metallized packaging recyclable.
The flexible packaging industry is working to meet 2025 recyclable packaging goals, though progress on barrier and metallized solutions remains challenging. While companies have engineered "recycle ready" products, viable end-of-life recycling pathways are equally critical to truly calling something recyclable.
Industry Initiatives
Several large-scale efforts are underway:
- Sortation Technology: Materials Recovery for the Future (North America) and CEFLEX (Europe) are developing marking and separation systems for flexible plastics.
- Chemical Recycling: The American Chemistry Council and research groups are investing in technologies to break down polymers to monomers or separate multi-layer structures.
- All-PE/PP Collections: The Sustainable Packaging Coalition and Association of Packaging Recycling are developing circular economy models for homogeneous pouches, with European counterparts CEFLEX and Plastic Recyclers Europe creating industry guidelines.
- Energy Recovery: The Flexible Packaging Association is developing waste-to-energy and waste-to-oil solutions.
Celplast's Contributions
The company has demonstrated three concrete achievements:
- Studies proving metallized polyethylene can be reclaimed and re-extruded into film
- Documentation of metallized PE liners now accepted by Trex's NexTrex recycling program
- Success with Canadian potato bag suppliers meeting Trex recycling standards
The author emphasizes that "collaboration and education" remain essential to achieving 2025 objectives, requiring broad-minded approaches to both materials and recycling processes.