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Today, sustainability has become the expectation not the exception. It’s an overarching theme across mega-trends such as climate, equity, supply chains and sustainable consumption, driven by consumers wanting a more sustainable future. 

This means making packaging, a mainstay of our modern society, perform while minimizing its lifetime impacts. Climate change impacts and plastic waste concerns can be mitigated by making more packaging recyclable. In this context, the need for plastic additives will only grow as recycled materials are upgraded for their next life.

Milliken is constantly evaluating how additives can increase the circularity of plastics, with its next generation additives focused intently on design for circularity. We aim to support the plastics industry with performance additives that continue to improve sustainable packaging by helping to “reduce, reuse and recycle.” That’s why Milliken’s product portfolio to enhance sustainability is growing, with a number of products and initiatives that help enable a transition to a more circular economy:

• Millad® NX® 8000 ECO clarifier for polypropylene provides glass-like clarity, enabling designers to shift from PS (identified as problematic by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation) to a more acceptable/recyclable PP.
• DeltaMax® Performance Modifiers allow for recycled polypropylene to be used in a wider variety of applications.
• UltraGuard™ Solutions add value to HDPE by increasing its barrier properties against most permeants by up to 60% with little to no impact on processing and mechanical properties. This helps designers achieve more recyclable, mono-material package structures. 
• DeltaFlow™ Viscosity Modifiers specifically help recyclers by increasing the melt flow rate of recycled polypropylene for use in injection molding processes, thereby enabling converters use these materials in a wider variety of products.

Milliken is also active in global initiatives working towards regulatory, industry and consumer advances in sustainable packaging. 

We joined the United Nations Global Compact in 2019, and report annually on progress in this area. Our sustainability efforts support the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, with a particular focus on nine of the 17 SDG goals. We also support numerous industry groups that focus on recycling and circularity. 

We’ve worked with Underwriters Laboratories (UL) Environment, an independent sustainability solutions provider, to confirm that certain materials formulated with our additives contribute significantly to energy savings during processing. Brand owners using materials certified with UL’s Environmental Claim Validation are authorized to display the UL eco-label on their products. 

As consumers demand more recyclable and reusable packaging, Milliken has aimed its technical innovations and policy contributions at enhancing recycling, reducing overall waste and lowering greenhouse gas emissions towards more sustainable packaging. A more sustainable future for packaging is one stop along the road towards a sustainable future.