The Brief: Where is the packaging industry at when it comes to recycling flexible plastics?

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Flexible plastics are essential in modern packaging, but are notoriously hard to recycle. This report reviews recent innovations, the challenges that persist, and what’s needed to make flexibles a sustainable part of the circular economy.

• Refill and mono-material pouches are gaining ground, with brands like Mondi and Liquibox leading the shift; but recyclability remains limited by infrastructure gaps and complex material mixes.
• Recycling rates remain low, with only 1–6% of flexible plastic waste recycled in the US and UK, and significant waste scandals highlighting systemic weaknesses.
• Design-for-recycling faces technical roadblocks, as flexibles require multiple functional layers (barriers, adhesives, inks) that complicate mechanical recycling.
• Advanced recycling and barrier coatings show promise, but most solutions aren’t yet food-grade or widely scalable, meaning key applications still lack viable end-of-life options.
• New initiatives like CEFLEX’s ValueFlex and R-Cycle’s digital passport are targeting quality recycling and better sorting, but rely on widespread infrastructure upgrades and policy support.
• Industry consensus is growing around the need for harmonized regulation, mono-material design, and scalable collection systems to enable circularity in flexibles.

Flexible plastics aren’t going away, but neither is the recycling crisis they pose. While innovation is ramping up, real progress hinges on harmonized policy, infrastructure investment, and design changes. Until those align, flexible packaging will remain a sustainability paradox: efficient by design, problematic by disposal.

Flexible plastics are commonly utilized in packaging across industrial sectors, but they are notoriously difficult to recycle. This edition of the Brief looks back on the progress made in the pursuit of recyclability in recent months and weighs up the remaining challenges faced by manufacturers and recyclers alike.

At the beginning of 2022, ExxonMobil application development team leads Sarah Jin and Yang Li noted that the rise in e-commerce was driving the packaging for liquid products away from rigids and towards flexibles. This included bag-in-box designs, plenty of which have since come to light. For example, Liquibox reached the finals of 2022’s Sustainability Awards for its Liquipure ultra-flexible packaging and mono-material VINIflow dispensing tap; and Sealed Air Corporation, now SEE, acquired the company in order to expand its own repertoire of bag-in-box solutions.

Jin and Li also drew attention to refill pouches as a growing trend. Mondi has been particularly proactive in this area, providing companies with solutions from a mono-material PE pouch to package refills for Henkel’s Pril hand dishwashing liquid to a lightweight stand-up pouch for Kao’s hair cosmetic brand, Goldwell – thought to facilitate an 80% decrease in plastic compared to its previous design.

Even so, it is important to consider that, while such materials are capable of being recycled, whether they actually are is a different issue. In February 2021, the Recycling Partnership estimated that the average household in the US generated between 75 and 88 pounds of flexible waste every year – yet only 1% of this could be recycled at home, it was claimed. Similarly, Bloomberg asserts that only 6% of the UK’s soft plastics are appropriately washed, shredded, melted, and filtered for impurities in the recycling process.

In still more drastic circumstances, flexible packaging has been at the centre of a scandal regarding waste disposal. E&T reported in 2022 that waste exporter Eurokey Recycling, previously contracted by retailers Tesco and Sainsbury’s, had its accreditation temporarily suspended due to mislabelling the types of plastics it exported – they were allegedly sent to Turkey to be dumped and burned illegally – leading Sainsbury’s to admit that none of its flexible plastic waste is recycled in the UK.

Are flexibles a no-go?

It is worth noting CEFLEX’s assertion that flexible packaging is designed to minimize the use of packaging materials; that its packaging-to-product ratio is five to ten times lower than other forms of packaging, which reduces the amount of energy used throughout the supply chain and reduces its environmental footprint.

It is also thought to generate less material losses than other packaging types; apparently, a 50g rigid pack with an 80% recycling rate would result in a 10g material loss, whereas a 5g flexible pack with a 0% recycling rate would still only lose 5g of material. Even if none of the flexible packaging in Europe were recyclable, CEFLEX states, the continent’s total carbon footprint would still decrease by 40% if it packaged every item of food available on the European market.

However, despite its efficiencies, it is undeniable that flexible packaging has a low recycling rate. This is partially attributable to the difficulty of recycling such materials. As BOPET Films Europe chairman Steven Davies explained to us in an interview, flexible packaging – often applied to small products – is dependent on “a complex mix of materials, inks, and adhesives” and frequently comes into direct contact with food. All these features make it difficult, if not impossible, to recycle the packaging mechanically. The low-quality recyclate resulting from such processes is an apparent deterrent to those who might otherwise consider investing in recycling technology for their packaging.

Nor is a simple redesign a guaranteed solution. Dr. Achim Grefenstein, senior vice president of Group R&D at Constantia Flexibles, explained on our Sustainability Perspectives podcast that flexible packaging needs a sealable layer to ensure that the plastic fits tightly around a product; a barrier layer to avoid migration; and an attractive outer surface to ensure that the product appeals to consumers.

Maintaining all these features and implementing sustainability is said to be difficult. Davies asserts that around 25% of household flexible packaging is currently made of PET and that a switch to polyolefin alternatives could lead to a 60% decrease in thickness to achieve stiffness in the pack – yet he reminds us that removing PET from its design eliminates the possibility of incorporating recycled content into food-contact packaging.

Compostable and biodegradable flexibles have become a popular alternative, although a study conducted by University College London indicated that such packaging is not a catch-all solution. Of 902 home compost experiments from which data was collected, 61% failed to meet the expectations of a certified home-compostable plastic, and 11% remained in compost as visible pieces at the end of the experiment. At less than 2mm in size, these pieces were technically considered microplastics, and while they will apparently decompose in time, they nevertheless failed to meet the standards of sustainability for which consumers had bought them.

So what can be done?

At present, Davies identifies incineration or advanced recycling processes such as pyrolysis as the only viable end-of-life solutions for flexible polyolefin packaging. He is optimistic about the latter’s future in the industry, yet organisations such as the Oeko-Institut have expressed their reservations about the sustainability of the process, particularly where carbon emissions are concerned. As such, for certain applications, the transition into recyclable plastics is more complicated than it first appears.

Specific products have attempted to counteract this. While FlexSea’s novel biomaterials reportedly utilize sustainably sourced red seaweed to replace single-use packaging with home-compostable flexibles, Brigl & Bergmeister and Coveris Flexibles’ PaperBarrier Seal is paper-based and recyclable in existing waste streams due to its unique paper coating. Nonetheless, neither solution is yet at a stage where it can replace flexible plastics, which, according to CEFLEX, package over 40% of food products and 10% of all consumer packaging materials in Europe.

Even as plastic flexibles begin to populate the reusable and refillable markets – the Pril pouch being one example – their end-of-life disposal is a considerable issue. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation states that less than 8% of business-to-consumer flexible plastics are recycled in Europe – the highest recycling rate of any continent – and that most of that figure can be attributed to downcycled PE.

One solution to the problem is to push forward with inventing new recycling solutions. CEFLEX and the Alliance to End Plastic Waste innovated the ValueFlex sorting and processing model for flexible plastics, theoretically ensuring that all polyolefin-based flexible packaging could undergo recycling. It utilizes near-infrared (NIR) and visible (VIS) sorting technology, as well as hot washing, extrusion with double filtration, and deodorization, with a new plant expected to produce film-grade polymers for non-food flexible packaging applications.

Its Quality Recycling Process (QRP) is a four-step mechanical process that, should it be carried out from beginning to end within the same plant, is believed by project coordinator Graham Houlder to incentivize the collection of used flexible packaging via the ‘powerful economic current’ it would create within the industry. Apparently, the process is capable of recycling a higher proportion of PE and PP film and mixed PO bales than was previously possible, thus achieving a higher rate of circularity for flexible plastics.

According to Dana Mosora, workstream consultant at CEFLEX, ValueFlex is set to be a complimentary solution to existing recycling technologies, rather than a competing one, and is expected to focus on quality over quantity.

Is mechanical recycling the best way forward?

A downside to this particular innovation is that it cannot yet produce food-contact polymers – an obvious issue, given the current popularity of flexibles within the food sector. That being said, many barrier coating solutions have come to light for such applications.

Hubergroup Print Solutions’ HYDRO-LAC GA Oxygen Barrier Coating is designed to fit between the pack itself and a film laminate made of the same material, ensuring that food packaging consists of only one material and can thus pass through recycling waste streams with ease; in a similar design, Siegwerk and Henkel’s oxygen barrier coating is applicable to mono-material food-contact flexibles and seeks to prevent mixed-material packaging from entering waste streams.

TotalEnergies, Windmöller & Hölscher, and Mitsubishi Chemical Group previously completed a proof of concept for their High-Barrier Stand-Up Pouch, supposedly containing 98% polyethylene and less than 2% of EVOH properties; BOBST’s OneBARRIER collection is reportedly designed for recycling, providing paper and polymer-based packaging with improved barrier properties; Toppan’s mono-material PE barrier, designed to package liquid products, is thought to increase the durability, sterility, and recyclability of the pack; the list continues.

Many of these solutions claim to bring additional enhancements to the functional properties of a flexible package – such as improved preservation of the food product or heat resistance – as well as making it compatible with existing waste streams.

If barrier solutions keep gaining traction, flexibles could become compatible with mechanical recycling. Such a development would benefit Dow Packaging’s collaboration with HP Indigo, Reifenhäuser, Cadel Deinking, and Karlville to combine its pouch-to-pouch mechanical recycling concept with the R-Cycle digital product passport technology in a move aimed to improve the sorting and recycling processes of flexible packaging.

Since current mechanical recycling streams cannot separate flexibles for recycling in the same way as rigid plastics, the digital passport is said to capture, write, and analyse information about the materials’ recycling processes via production and ERP systems; this can then be retrieved by a marker and used to facilitate separation.

So, too, is SI Group’s EVERCYCLE additives platform said to improve performance, quantity, stability, and colour control in the recycling of a range of plastic materials – the PP-101S is specifically dedicated to flexible HDPE and PP packaging. Such technology is hoped to drive up the quantity and reusability of recycled plastics and increase recycling rates.

Could the answer be so simple?

Naturally, these solutions require effective collection systems. CEFLEX has repeatedly expressed its views as to the importance of collecting flexible packaging waste to encourage circularity, and a pilot scheme to facilitate the kerbside recycling of hard-to-recycle plastic films took place in Hickory Hills, Illinois, courtesy of WM and Dow. Whether similar solutions will catch on in the industry remains to be seen, but until they are commonplace, the machinery capable of recycling flexibles cannot yet be applied at scale.

Until the industry reaches that point, CEFLEX suggests that ‘energy recovery is a viable alternative for non-recycled materials’. Meanwhile, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation argues that other upscale systems should be developed and implemented to prevent single-use flexibles from being utilized unnecessarily. This includes businesses prioritising and pursuing a well-resourced research and development agenda, and policymakers enforcing bans, subsidiaries, and extended producer responsibility globally to incentivize new innovations.

Indeed, Dr. Grefenstein argues that the development of new machinery – as well as new recycling technologies such as pyrolysis – has become a crutch through which manufacturers hope to continue producing packaging in a business-as-usual scenario. He claims that new technologies will play a role in a circular economy, but that role is to increase recyclate quality, rather than taking the place of design-for-recycling.

Where single-use flexibles cannot be replaced, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation instead suggests that scaling collection, sorting, and recycling systems is the most efficient path towards sustainability, as well as ensuring that flexibles continue to be manufactured with designed with sustainability in mind. Around 40% of flexibles are thought to consist of multiple materials and making the switch to mono-materials is expected to improve their recyclability.

For instance, EMSUR designed a new shrink sleeve for bottled drinks that the company claims can be recycled right alongside PET in the recycling stream. This is because it was reportedly based on a combination of PET-based films and washable inks, preventing contamination from the residues of non-recyclable materials.

It is apparently in the best interest of manufacturers to make these kinds of transitions. According to Davies, monomer recycling is lower in both cost and carbon emissions, “offering the only real opportunity for a closed-loop recycling process for household flexible packaging.” Yet the lack of solid infrastructure surrounding the collection process has limited the impact of new recycling technologies, which in turn are still in the development process. While progress is certainly being made, the most effective transition into sustainable flexibles remains unclear.

The complexities surrounding flexible plastics and how they are recycled expand beyond the points raised here. Perhaps Dr. Grefenstein provides the most concise conclusion in his statement that Europe needs harmonized guidelines, both within the continent and globally, in order to make progress.

The European Commission is attempting to put this into action with its Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, and it is set to negotiate the legislation with the European Parliament and Council in January 2024. Still, its recent drafts have caused controversy throughout the industry, and flexible packaging organizations are no exception.

Flexible Packaging Europe spoke positively of its declaration that food-contact flexible transport packaging is exempt from reuse targets – a move hoped to reduce food waste, emissions, and product contamination. Yet it expressed its concerns that sorting waste that is not collected in separate streams is still voluntary, leaving vast amounts of packaging materials vulnerable to ending up in landfill, incinerators, or the natural environment.

Additionally, Plastics Europe fears that its bans and reduction targets – described by many as “arbitrary” and accused of unfairly targeting plastic packaging – will have a negative impact on pre-existing recycling processes for flexible plastics.

Whether or not such feedback is taken on board, a uniform set of regulations will exist in the near future. These will undoubtedly streamline the intricate web of developing possibilities across the packaging sector; time will tell whether they bring the environmental benefits they intend to.