New Report Explores Recycling Opportunities of Film Packaging

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The Closed Loop Foundation has released a study report that details the investment opportunities in recycling of film and flexible packaging. The study was carried out in support of Racine, Washington-based SC Johnson.

The report notes that there is a real lack of real investable opportunities at the stage of commercialization. A road map for investing in flexible packaging needs to be created, so as to offer support to the industry as well as investors. According to Closed Loop Foundation, film and flexible packaging are one among the under-recovered stream of materials. The market participants and investors must focus on use of emergent technologies to develop markets for these products, the report says.

There exist several challenges to recycling of flexible packaging. To ensure life of packaged food, the flexible packaging is usually made from a combination of several layers of different plastics. This presents recycling challenges as these different types of plastics are not compatible with each other when melted together, making it difficult to recycle. Recycling technologies need to be upgraded to make all the different films recyclable.

The most commonly recycled film is the commercial polyethylene film, which are most often recycled into trash bags and thicker-gauge commercial film. Nearly 21% of all polyethylene films are recycled. The second most commonly recycled type of film is the residential polyethylene film, with an estimated 4% recycling rate. Consumers must be encouraged and educated in order to step up the collection of film bags and wraps under this category through retailer collection programs, which is currently available to almost all US households.

As of now, only very few residential curbside recycling programs accept films. However, residents prefer to place them in the recycling cart instead of returning them through retailer collection programs. The films, which often get contaminated in the collection process, enjoy limited market demand. As a result, most of these films are disposed of by material recovery facilities (MRFs). Investments need to be supported with government grants and loans to ensure development of end markets for films. The report highlights enormous investment opportunities that exist in the sorting and processing of flexible packaging.

Finally, Closed Loop Foundation recommends the need for coordination among initiatives by various organizations, in order to avoid duplication of efforts. A proper synchronization of such efforts would help the industry to tackle obstacles and make significant progress in recycling of film and flexible packaging.