The struggle against climate change and environmental pollution continues to gain momentum, with public opinion leaders, multinationals brand owners and numerous countries stepping up to take part in this effort. Green products are no longer considered a passing trend, but rather an important and essential component of the products offered by leading companies. The plastic industry is seen as being on the wrong side of this trend, with its products consuming limited fossil resources, polluting the environment, harming the oceans, and contaminating the world’s nature reserves and forests. In recent years this industry reached the realization that if it wants plastic to continue to be the main raw material used in various industries it must take groundbreaking action, provide environmentally friendly solutions, and participate in the environmental effort.
The wonders of plastic
Most of the plastic used around the world is thermoplastic, including films used for food packaging. Thermoplastic materials can undergo countless cycles of melting and remolding, which means that, theoretically, plastic films can be recycled without changing the product properties. Unfortunately, theory and practice are far apart. Recycling plastic packaging products presents considerable challenges, and these hamper the efforts to reduce environmental waste and pollution.
The challenges of flexible packaging
Food packaging must have the properties necessary for maintaining food freshness and protecting against pollutants and gasses such as oxygen and water vapor which can deteriorate the product. It must also be mechanically durable, fit the packaging machine and catch the consumer’s eye on the supermarket shelf.
These are complex properties, requiring a combination of several materials, each providing a certain property to the final product. This is the reason why flexible packaging is produced from layers of different polymers which are incompatible and cannot be recycled together as one whole package. Moreover, it is important to know that the layers of the different materials cannot be mechanically separated once the film is produced.
What end-of-life solutions are available for standard food packaging?
Unfortunately, very few end-of-life solutions for multilayer plastic packaging support sustainability. One possible solution is chemical recycling. This is a very expensive process and as such is less viable. This leads to landfill disposal as an accepted solution in many places. However, this leaves the plastic in the ground for many years, and if the waste is not collected properly the packaging may also reach and pollute the environment. Another option is energy recovery in which waste is converted into usable energy. This solution is incompatible with green energy principles aimed at promoting the use of renewable energy sources and reducing the use of limited fossil resources.
Should we give up on plastic packaging all together?
Even though plastic is considered a significant environmental pollutant, the truth of the matter is that its carbon footprint is more environmentally friendly than currently available alternatives, among them paper, metal, or glass packaging. Plastic packaging is significantly lighter than the mentioned alternatives, and therefore its transport consumes less energy. Furthermore, it provides for a particularly longer packaged product lifetime and prevents food spoilage and waste. This property is significant, since growing food consumes large reserves of water and land, and its waste causes particularly significant environmental damage. As such, despite calls from environmentalists, the idea of halting the use of plastic for the benefit of the environment is simply misleading!
The solution: eco-friendly and recyclable innovative flexible packaging
In order to promote the idea of sustainable flexible packaging, a recyclable film as a single unit must be produced. This requires use of only one type of polymer in all film layers. Such a structure, mono-material flexible packaging, will enable us to combine all worlds. On the one hand maximum protection of the packaged food, and at the same time the advantages of this thermoplastic material which will also be recyclable and reusable. Polysack specializes in the production of such films based on MDO (Machine Direction Orientation) technology used in the mono-material flexible packaging production process.
Polysack offers several types of sustainable packaging films:
- Pack ‘N’ Cycle – MOPE (mono-oriented PE) film that can be used for a variety of packaging solutions, among them: stand up pouch, quad seal bag, side gusset bag, pillow bag and flow pack.
- Polyphane™ Fit – labeling film for bottles and containers that undergoes shrinking for perfect affixing to the product.
- Polyphane™ Twist Wrap – a film suitable for candy packaging or products requiring a film with excellent dead fold abilities. This is high gloss film with excellent mechanical and thermal properties.
All our films are made of 100% polyethylene and easily recyclable. Therefore, we can confidently say that they are truly recyclable mono material packaging films. We invite you to contact us for advice from our Polysack experts regarding the most suitable film for your packaging applications.
