Recyclability
Once different materials such as paper, metals, and plastics are separated into disctinct fractions, they can enter a recycling process.
These guidelines focus on mechanical recycling of polyolefin plastics (PE and PP), because this is where large-scale recycling capacity already exists, especially for flexible plastic packaging.
Mechanical recycling of flexible PE and PP is proven at commercial scale in Europe. However, much more infrastructure will be needed as more countries start collecting household flexible packaging for recycling and as stricter recycling targets come into force.
The quality of the material going into recycling makes a big difference. Cleaner, less contaminated packaging reduces costs for washing and sorting, improves yield, and produces higher-quality recycled plastic.
Flexible plastic mechanical recycling process
Sorting
It is common practice for most recycling facilities to perform some degree of additional sorting processes on the unbaled materials which can include magnetic separation, eddy current separation and NIR optical sorting stations.
Size reduction & washing
The waste plastics are typically shredded and washed to remove contaminants such as paper, residual food/product waste, dirt, and sand.
Density separation
This process is used to separate polyolefins from other plastics such as Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or polystyrene (PS).
Drying & extrusion
The final stage where plastics are melted, filtered, and pelletised.
A range of recycling pathways are required to produce recycled materials in the quality and quantities required to deliver the circular economy and EU legislative targets.
For flexible packaging that contains aluminium foil, recycling usually starts with pyrolysis. This process breaks down plastics and other organic materials at high temperature without oxygen, so the aluminium can be recovered. The plastic part is not yet recycled at scale but is used to generate energy.
Other technologies are also emerging. Solvent dissolution (a physical recycling method) is being developed and rolled out, helping to recycle more complex packaging structures. At the same time, chemical recycling methods such as pyrolysis, hydrothermal breakdown, gasification, and depolymerisation are advancing. These will become more important as we move towards a circular economy, and the guidelines will be updated to reflect progress.
Mechanical recycling facilities can look quite different depending on the types of packaging they handle and the quality standards for the recycled material. The example process here is just one model – many facilities use different steps and setups.
Understand each of these steps and connect them to your packaging design choices by consulting the complete guidelines
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