Sustainable Plastics - March/April 2023 - 25

recycling
Flexible packaging
and recyclability: an
ongoing challenge
Printing inks are an often-unrecognised
factor in the recyclability discussion.
Olivier Morel, product development
manager at Domino Printing Sciences,
explores, how with the right ink choice,
brands can ensure that their product
labelling will support, and not hinder,
recycling efforts.
I
n the Global Commitment
progress report for
2022, the Ellen MacArthur
Foundation states
that the target to completely
implement reusable, recyclable,
or compostable packaging by
2025 will " likely not be met " by
most business signatories, with
the use of flexible plastic packaging
highlighted as a major
contributing factor.
The solution to this issue is
anything but simple. While flexible
plastic (e.g., plastic bags,
plastic film, and food wrapping)
is difficult to recycle, it is highly
efficient as a packaging material.
It is very low in weight,
which minimises carbon emissions
from transport, while
providing numerous benefits,
including product protection,
preservation, and quality assurance.
Flexible plastic is also
60% more energy-efficient to
manufacture than other packaging
materials such as paper
and card - and produces 50%
and 70% less water and air pollutants,
respectively. Moreover,
recycling plastics uses just 10%
of the energy necessary to recycle
paper.
Reducing the amount of flexible
plastic used within food
packaging would therefore ultimately
present other issues
around sustainability, but we
cannot escape end-of-life challenges
when it comes to flexible
plastics, as collection and
recycling are not carried out at
scale. While 66% of all products
sold within the EU and 44%
of post-consumer packaging
waste are flexible packaging,
most EU households do not
currently have access to flexible
plastic recycling at kerbside,
and only 6% of flexible plastics
are recycled. Therefore, as an
industry we must redouble efforts
to improve the recycling
potential of flexible plastics.
One of the key barriers to
wide-scale recycling of flexible
packaging is the quality of the
collected materials, which is typically
lower than that of bulkier
plastics. The inks used on flexible
packaging can be part of this
challenge - adding additional
materials to plastic packaging
can affect the quality of the plastic
and harm recyclability.
That said, the inks used on
flexible packaging - whether for
coding and marking of product
data or full printing of flexible
films and labels - have a crucial
role to play, and so ensuring
solutions are suitable for recycling
is of significant importance.
The role of inks on
product packaging
Product labelling plays a fundamental
role in enabling food
and beverage manufacturers to
communicate essential information
to consumers, as well
as to retailers, and throughout
global food supply chains.
Olivier Morel
From a waste and recycling
perspective, product labels are
also an effective way of communicating
with consumers
about how to deal with packaging
when it has reached the
end of its usable life. This could
include information about the
packaging composition and its
recyclability; guidance on how
to dispose of the packaging correctly
(e.g., recycle at home, instore,
or specialist recycling); or
additional details included in 2D
codes, such as websites to locate
the nearest recycling point.
Increasingly, regulatory requirements
and compulsory
product labelling are being introduced
to help consumers
dispose of packaging correctly.
France's Triman logo, Italy's
Legislative Decree 116/2020,
and the UK's Department for Environment,
Food & Rural Affairs
(DEFRA) Recycle Now mandate
have set the scene, and more
countries will likely follow suit.
In addition, we are seeing an
increase in labelling initiatives
aimed at improving the collection
and sorting of packaging
waste. The Digital Watermarks
HolyGrail 2.0 initiative, for example,
aims to use digital watermarking
to enable better sorting
and higher-quality recycling
rates for packaging in the EU.
The aim is that once the packaging
has entered into a waste
sorting facility, the digital watermark
(an otherwise imperceptible
code) can be detected and
decoded by a high-resolution
camera and sorted into corresponding
recycling streams.
So, how can brands ensure
that the inks used as part of all
these coding requirements will
support - and not hinder -
the recyclability of a packaging
material?
Designing inks for
recyclability
Very few regulations specify
requirements or restrictions regarding
inks on recyclable packaging.
However, with the current
focus on improving recycling
rates, it is likely only a matter of
time before these are introduced,
particularly given the increase in
independent, unaligned guidance
documents available for
continued on page 26
March/April 2023
25
Sustainable Plastics - March/April 2023

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