Smithers recently released a special research report "The future of the single-material plastic packaging film market in 2025" pointed out that its market size in 2019 was 20.44 million tons (55.9 billion US dollars), and it may increase to 26.03 million tons ( 70.9 billion US dollars) in 2025. ).

Asia Pacific, North America and Western Europe are the three major consumer markets for single-material plastic packaging films in the world. In 2020, the above three regional markets accounted for 48.6%, 17.2% and 15.5% of the global single-material plastic packaging film market respectively.

Under the pressure of environmental protection, major global brands have begun to promise to use more single-material packaging. Some material manufacturing companies, such as Borealis, Dow, ExxonMobil, Nova Chemical Corporation, and Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, have recently Lai also introduced a variety of recyclable single-material plastic films.

Among them, polyolefin is the most suitable choice as a single material packaging. PP is divided into isotactic, syndiotactic, and random, and PE is divided into HDPE, LDPE, LLDPE, FDPE, etc., which can meet different mechanical properties and strength requirements.

01, recyclable PP cover film

KM Packaging has launched a new type of recyclable cover film made of single polypropylene (PP). This environmentally friendly film has good transparency and anti-fogging properties, and can be used for sealing and peeling polypropylene (PP) trays and PP trays lined with polyethylene (PE). It can be used for packaging poultry and meat food, can be directly heated in a microwave oven, and can also be used for refrigeration or frozen preservation.

Graham Holding, KM’s commercial director, explained: “If flexible packaging is a combination of paper, plastic and aluminum foil, then it will be a type of packaging that is difficult to separate and recycle. It is expected that the British government will introduce it in 2023. The "Extended Packaging Producer Responsibility Regulations" (Extended Packaging Producer Responsibility Regulations) impose severe penalties on packaging that is difficult to recycle."

This new type of polypropylene cover film is also suitable for other countries and regions in the world that already have complete polyolefin (polyethylene and polypropylene) plastic recycling facilities.

In the UK, store recycling facilities allow consumers to return polyolefin flexible packaging. Other countries have adopted similar practices. In Australia and South Africa, polyolefins are the most recycled bulk plastic products by weight.

CEFLEX's "Circular Economy Design" guidelines also pay great attention to polyolefin flexible packaging. This is because this material packaging accounts for 70 to 80% of the flexible packaging waste in Europe, and the classification and recycling capabilities of the packaging have been proven in Europe.

02, PP film that saves 60% of materials

German packaging company Südpack provides two new single-material solutions for minced meat packaging. According to reports, these two kinds of packaging are made of environmentally friendly PP film, which is not only conducive to recycling, but also saves materials.

Among them, Flow-Pack purep film bag packaging can achieve 60% material saving compared with tray packaging. 1 kg of minced meat only needs 9.5 grams of film bag packaging. Südpack said that because the film has better sealing properties, it can be processed directly on all common flow packaging machines at high speed and efficiency.

Another film is Multifol PurePP soft film, which can be used for the bottom film of thermoformed packaging of minced meat and peelable PP-based film, and the film can also be used for modified atmosphere packaging and vacuum packaging.

Carolin Grimbacher, managing partner of Südpack, said that these two new packaging solutions show the company's determination and efforts to continuously think and innovate packaging.

03, recycled polypropylene organic tea capsules

Avoury, a new brand of Melitta Single Portions, a well-known hot beverage group, is cooperating with SABIC to develop groundbreaking organic tea capsules using its TRUCIRCLE solutions and services.

The organic tea capsules are made of SABIC's certified recycled polypropylene (PP), which is recycled from waste plastic.

SABIC Circular Economy Leader Mark Vester said: "Avoury tea capsules are a model of innovative cooperation between SABIC and Melitta Single Portions, aiming to produce the world's first tea capsules using TRUCIRCLE circulation solutions."

capsules are specially made for the new Avoury One tea machine launched at the end of last year. With this tea machine, consumers can make a cup of high-quality tea at the touch of a button. Transparent tea capsules bring a better consumer experience, allowing them not only to taste high-quality tea, but also to peek into the tea inside through the capsule.

According to SABIC, recyclable packaging also creates a transparent, beautiful, and lightweight design that not only maintains the quality of tea, but also complies with food and beverage product safety regulations. The packaging is heat-resistant and can protect the tea. At the same time, the tea can release its unique flavor freely with the click of a button.

04, high barrier, high heat resistance, recyclable polypropylene PP bag new type cooking

Amcor cooperated with Nestlé to launch a breakthrough product—recyclable flexible cooking bag. High barrier, high heat resistance, recyclable polypropylene PP bag The new retort bag is a polypropylene (PP) bag that uses an ultra-thin AmLite transparent barrier coating to protect the product.

Compared with standard retort bags usually made of mixed materials such as PET, aluminum foil and polypropylene (PP), this kind of high barrier, high heat resistance packaging can be more easily carried out in the plastic recycling stream of several European countries Recycling.

The flexible cooking bag is being put on the market as an alternative to metal cans. The two companies said that because of its light weight, high resource efficiency, easy transportation and minimizing food waste, the flexible cooking bag can improve the carbon of hundreds of consumer products. Footprint. According to Amcor, increasing recyclability will improve the environmental footprint of the packaging solution by 60%.

05, new biaxially oriented BOPE film

Jindal Films has begun to produce its latest BOPE film series Ethy-Lyte in Europe, aiming to provide a fully recyclable single polyethylene (PE) packaging alternative to meet current and future recycling needs.

According to reports, this biaxially oriented BOPE film can be used to replace laminated OPET or OPA film. It provides heat resistance, mechanical and optical properties for various printing, printing and dyeing processing, packaging and product protection.

The new film can be used in different packaging processes, such as heat sealing, electromagnetic induction sealing and SUP, etc. It is mainly used for dry food, pet food, frozen food, processed food, detergent, personal care, etc.

According to the guidelines of CEFLEX and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF), laminated polyolefins should not include paper, PET, nylon, and aluminum foil to achieve effective sorting and mechanical recycling. Mirek Tokaj, Marketing Director of Jindal Films, believes that Ethy-Lyte's innovations will help meet the growing demand for single-material solutions "designed for recycling" throughout Europe.

06, all PE vertical

Under the tripartite cooperation of Dow, Amorepacific and Flair Flexible Packaging, Amorepacific’s high-end cosmetics brand Sulwhasoo, cleansing skin care brand Prima and skin care brand illiyoon will use all polyethylene (PE) recyclable stand-up pouch packaging Its a liquid product. Flair Flexible Packaging is responsible for the design and manufacture of stand-up bags.

Hanil Lee, Senior Vice President of Flair Flexible Packaging Technology, said, “The design of this stand-up pouch is functional, attractive and fully recyclable. Dow’s INNATE™ TF resin enables us to develop packaging solutions that support the circular economy. Program.

Compared with uniaxially stretched PE film, TF-BOPE film has significant performance improvement in optical properties, film appearance, dart impact, pinhole resistance and other physical properties, and it is closer to the effect of flexible packaging on shelf display and rigorous logistics and transportation tests. Requirements.

At the same time, because of its unique physical properties, it can be replaced by materials to simplify or thin the film structure, thereby reducing the amount of packaging materials. In addition, the film can also be directly used for the printing layer of packaging, and used in conjunction with other PE functional layers to achieve packaging of all PE materials, which is more convenient for recycling and improves sustainability.