Recycling the unrecyclable?

Andrew Green, Berry Global Divisional CEO of Berry bpi, considers how plastic films are enhancing their circularity.

Flexible plastic packaging plays a key role in supporting and shaping our modern world. Its many benefits, including strength, durability and flexibility, mean it meets the needs of busy lifestyles, delivering, among other things, high levels of product protection, consumer convenience and on-shelf appeal.

Just as importantly for today’s environmentally conscious world, flexible plastic can contribute to companies’ sustainability goals. It is lightweight, which is an advantage during transportation of goods; by protecting and preserving products, it extends shelf-life to minimise food waste; and continuing technical advances mean the latest plastics deliver the same performance while being even lighter, thus contributing to material reduction targets.

Despite all this, plastic has a perception challenge associated with its end-of-life disposal options. Consumers are demanding sustainable packaging solutions, governments are increasingly evaluating extended producer responsibility, and there is an urgent need for all stakeholders involved in the supply and use of plastic packaging, including brand-owners and equipment manufacturers, to take collective responsibility to bring innovation and investment toward circularity from its production to end-of-life.

In our own efforts at Berry Global, bpi division, we started our focus with efforts to reduce material usage in the 1990s. While successful in meeting performance objectives, this established expertise was not enough in giving our natural resources multiple lives and delivering on circularity objectives, so we advanced our design capabilities and material science expertise.

Design for circularity includes enhancing the material’s recyclability. We took major steps in our flexible packaging to redesign into monolithic PE structures that are much easier for consumers to recycle. More advanced systems and technology for recovery and sorting are improving the quality of the recycled material, which in turn further widens their usage and range of applications.

Berry has developed a recyclable alternative to traditional laminated films using the knowledge and expertise from the production of its proven FormiFor film.

The new Formifor Lam combines full recyclability, excellent performance, with superb point of sale impact to provide an alternative to traditional non-recyclable PET/PE and OPET/PE laminated films

Simultaneously, developments are also continuing in the incorporation of recycled material into new films. While recycled flexible plastic is traditionally used for refuse sacks and building films, Berry is now transforming its use to replace virgin content in higher value products such as shrink film, and retail and industrial packaging as part of its circular economy strategy.

An increasing amount of Berry bpi’s packaging products now contain between 30 and 50 per cent recycled content. Its Sustane recycled polymer, produced from post-industrial and post-consumer recycled plastic, is able to match the performance of those products made from 100 per cent virgin polymers, in terms of look and feel, function and strength, including its capacity for high-quality printing.

Innovations such as these are supporting the move from a linear to a circular economy. While we believe Berry is at the forefront of providing innovative sustainable solutions to our customers both in the development of fully recyclable flexible plastics and of high recycled content materials, to be truly successful, it will not be just technology that drives higher levels of recycled content in plastics packaging. It will be achieved through co-ordinated action across the whole supply chain, focusing on improved consistency and traceability of raw material, improved recyclability of films, the introduction of common standards, and the capability of packaging technology to handle and process these materials.

Through continued collaboration and innovation, flexible packaging has a pivotal role in ensuring goods are safely protected and promoted while helping to support the sustainability aspirations of brands, retailers, and consumers.