Is Your Packaging A Recycling Stumbling Block - How Mono-Material Packaging Might Help

Sourcing the right type of material can make or break circular packaging strategies. But even if you’ve selected a highly recyclable material like polypropylene (PP), how you design your packaging could work against you.

Using plastic, especially PP, brings sustainability impacts that can be realized across the value chain. Reduced carbon footprint for the production and transportation stages and greater recyclability post-consumer all factor into why PP is an attractive packaging material. It is also highly recyclable, and with purposeful additives, PP can utilize post-consumer recycled content in future products.

Even though PP is a highly recyclable material, it doesn’t necessarily mean that packaging using PP is recycled. In an age where visually appealing packaging can enhance overall product performance, brand owners want to elevate and showcase products on display. Strategies might rely on catchy labels, caps, and specialty sleeves—all of which can serve a technical purpose alongside aesthetic function. Caps, for example, are vital to keep products secure in transport. Often, though, PP packaging is used in combination with other resins and barrier layers, making the overall packaging incompatible with most recycling streams.

Enter the mono-material strategy—developing packaging using all one type of material or plastic.

If we consider PP as our single material, all packaging elements will come from PP resin enhanced with strengthening additives, which is then manufactured or molded to the specifications needed. This allows PP to be used for all parts of packaging, including bottle caps and in-mold labeling (IML).

The benefits of mono-material packaging become even more attractive when you consider the holistic value chain premise.

• Mono-material plastic packaging is easier to recycle than multi-material plastic containers, often requiring multiple steps to separate the different materials. This means that more mono-material packaging will be recycled, reducing the amount of waste in landfills and incinerators.
• When different types of plastic are mixed together, it can contaminate the recycling stream, making it difficult to recycle the plastic. Mono-material plastic packaging reduces the risk of contamination and furthers the circular economy for plastic by incorporating more post-consumer plastic into new products.
• Mono-material plastic packaging has a lower environmental impact than multi-material plastic containers. This is because they require less energy to produce and transport on the front end of their life cycle, and they typically generate less waste on the back end.

PP, according to the Association for Plastic Recyclers, is ideally suited for mono-material packaging application given its versality of use, its balance of impact, heat and chemical resistance, and its stiffness and close dimensional tolerance. Developing mono-material PP packaging is ultimately beneficial to the recycling process; yet creating these PP packaging solutions often require specially enhanced PP resin.

Milliken’s portfolio of additive solutions helps manufacturers and brand owners develop and position more sustainable mono-packaging solutions using PP:

• Millad NX 8000 ECO, used to produce NX UltraClear™ PP resin, allows injection molders who use the material to process at lower temperatures and reduce their energy use during production by up to 10% on average compared to conventional clarifiers. This energy savings can make brand owners eligible to display the UL Environmental Claim Validation (ECV) label, verifying this energy savings has been confirmed by UL.
• The entire Millad NX 8000 line helps PP achieve high levels of clarity with low haze and reduced yellowness. Using PP over other clear packaging options like glass enhances sustainable metrics, especially when looking at density of glass and plastic. With a lower density, PP can reduce transportation carbon footprint, cost less to transport and store, and save brands lost-product costs due to breakage.

Curious what a mono-material packaging option could look like for you? Get in touch with our team of experts to explore your next solution.