Mondi and Werner & Mertz presented a fully recyclable stand-up pouch made of polyethylene at an industry event in Munich. Representatives from both companies presented the result of four years of development.
Werner & Mertz has been examining the idea of a recyclable flexible packaging made from just one material, the company announces. The product was to be designed - a completely recyclable Stand-up pouch from the monomaterial Polyethylene with a detachable sleeve made from the same material - according to the „cradle to cradle“ principle. This means that the same product can be made again from the recycled raw material.
„This pioneering design for recycling represents another major step forward in the recycling of plastic packaging“
Property Sander, Head of Packaging Development at Werner & Mertz (Photo: Packaging Summit/Martin Kroll)
As packaging specialists, Werner & Mertz brought in the packaging and paper company Mondi on board. The aim was to create a bag made of mono-material instead of the usual Multi-layer products, which could be printed and filled using existing technologies.
Project group trialled „Design for Recycling“
In 2015, the two companies then founded a Project group together with Der Grüne Punkt , EPEA Switzerland and cyclos-HTP . The three partners supported the development with advice on material selection as well as confirmation of the actual recyclability of the bag and integration into existing recycling structures. During development, however, all those involved first had to find out what „Design for Recycling“ actually means - even the experienced packaging experts had to consistently learn to think about the product from its end.
However, the fully recyclable bag is just the beginning of the development process recyclable flexible plastic packaging. „Our aim is for the flexible plastic packaging to not only be fully recyclable, but also to be made from recycled materials itself,“ said Sander. To this end, he outlined the planned steps up to 2025, which range from the introduction of the current innovative packaging to further development steps for printing inks and Barrier properties through to the use of recyclate. „We have now laid a successful foundation on which we can build with our further goals,“ says Sander
