A raft of materials and packaging specialists are reporting vast improvements to their packaging quality, recyclability and sustainability credentials. Here Rob Coker looks at examples from packaging producer Graham Packaging, Finland-based research institute VTT, Huhtamäki and hubergroup Print Solutions.
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Partnerships improve packaging
More and more consumers are looking at the recyclability of packaging products when making purchases as various recyclers and technology developers are working alongside local and regional governments in order to improve waste management. Europe alone produces nearly 30 million tonnes of plastic waste each year, with food packaging making up around 60 per cent of the plastic waste produced. Packaging waste in Europe reached a record high in 2017, resulting in swift action to ensure packaging on the EU market is fit for a circular economy by 2030. Flexible packaging and films, however, continue to cause uncertainty as infrastructure catches up.
For this reason, hubergroup Print Solutions has developed a new oxygen barrier coating named HYDRO-LAC GA, which protects foods and enables mono-material packaging – and thereby simplifying the recycling problem.
It’s no secret that conventional flexible food packaging is a structure of numerous layers of laminated film, each with their own different chemical compositions, and various plastics cannot be recycled together at the molecular level. HYDRO-LAC GA, however, is a result of the use of film laminates made using the same polymers (usually PP or PE) with oxygen barrier coating applied between the layers. With the former material, an oxygen transmission rate (OTR) of less than 10 cubic centimetres per square metre per day can be achieved and thus improve the storage of oxygen-sensitive food products such as nuts and muesli.
Dr Lutz Frischmann, Global Product Director Flexible Packaging at hubergroup, said: "Through innovative solutions such as our new barrier coating, we can contribute to a circular economy together with our customers."
A new discussion paper from Finland’s Technical Research Center (VTT), ‘Recycling Food Packaging’, highlights potential new technology solutions. Some of these are not yet available – the latest estimates anticipate five years before commercial availability – but, in the meantime, the right kinds of partnerships are key to delivering innovations in food packaging recycling.
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Partnerships improve packaging
Lead author and VTT Principal Scientist Mona Arnold writes: ‘[A]lliances between brand owners, recycling and sorting technology developers and waste management companies … are essential for future investment in new recycling technology.’
Providing the foreword for Arnold’s paper, Huhtamäki Executive Vice President, Sustainability and Communications, Thomasine Kamerling added: ‘We see innovation, partnerships and the more effective use of Extended Producer Responsibility as the way forward to building a material-positive system for fit-for-purpose food packaging – where the materials which provide access to safe, affordable foods and help prevent food waste, are then recycled in ways that maximize their value to both the planet and people, delivering a low carbon circular economy.’
Huhtamäki has in this respect augmented its 2030 sustainability agenda by including a commitment to design for recycling, ensuring its packaging products are either compostable or reusable by this time; and through its aim to have more than 80 per cent of raw materials be either renewable or recycled.
One example of a successful Huhtamäki partnership was established alongside SABIC, which provided chemically recycled polypropylene from its TRUCIRCLE range, and MARS Petcare packaging for which Huhtamäki PP film structures were incorporated into the leading SHEBA brand of cat food.
A press release announcing the integration of the film structures into the product read: ‘Only with advanced recycled materials and their ability to be food safe has this development been possible, and it is an excellent example of how this technology is essential to help close the gap in enabling plastic waste to become truly circular.’
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Partnerships improve packaging
More recently, US-based packaging specialist Graham Packaging has released its 2021 sustainability report that highlights the role of partnerships between its customers and key stakeholders in making ‘measurable strides in environmental, social and governance initiatives to increase overall sustainability’.
‘Our partnerships,’ the report adds, ‘with organizations like the Association of Plastic Recyclers and The Recycling Partnership have remained strong, and we’ve helped shape key legislation as industry advisors.’
Graham’s packaging solutions are manufactured using varying measures of recycled content, although its long-term goals state that a cross-portfolio average of 20 per cent minimum PCR content will be incorporated into its bottles. Current amounts of PCR content in Graham’s bottle portfolio can range from 10-100%, which is included in the company’s latest range of always-recyclable products.
Working alongside industry organisations such as PetCore Europe, Operation CleanSweep, Plastics Recyclers Europe and Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Graham Packaging has been able to process ‘2.5 million pounds (~1.1 million kg) of ocean-bound plastic’ recovered through its ‘work with suppliers who are certified to provide large volumes of ocean-bound plastic, including food-grade material, to our manufacturing operations’, according to the 2021 Sustainability Report.
Old sayings, however cliché, have a knack of being apt at certain times, maintaining their relevance throughout the ages. The appropriate one here is an old African proverb: ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together’.