We’re updating our site to improve your experience. Thank you for your patience.

AKRON, OH—Sustainability in design, use and end-of-life processing will increasingly define flexible packaging across the next five years, according to new expert insight from Smithers. This will create challenges for the whole value chain through 2026, even as the market adjusts to a market space redefined by COVID-19, and short-term disruption in the supply of raw materials in the first six months of 2021.

In its latest in-depth study, The Future of Sustainable Flexible Packaging to 2026, Smithers notes that with the emergence of circular economy models, there is a need to shift away from traditional weight reduction considerations to other strategies. It has a direct focus on actionable approaches that can be taken at all stages of the flexible packaging value chain to realize a greener tomorrow.

Flexible packaging, like the bags in this photo, will exhibit high-performance paper grades, optimized barrier performance and more functional polymer mono-materials.
Photo courtesy of Smithers

These are grouped into seven key business and technology areas:

  1. Design for recycling—including optimizing barrier performance and coatings, switching to new high-performance paper grades, and the rapid development of functional polymer mono-material packs
  2. Overcoming technical and regulatory challenges to increase the volume of recycled content used in films and other plastic formats, with a focus on low-density polyethylene (LDPE), high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET)
  3. Innovating to meet the emerging need for more reusable flexible formats in both traditional retail and the booming e-commerce segment
  4. Improving waste management via marking and collection, to boost supplies of high-grade post-consumer resin (PCR), including grades suitable for food contact applications
  5. Sustainable sourcing of feedstocks, including PCR, but also bio-based versions of existing plastics, substitution from polymer to paper substrates where plausible, and the wider use of recycled pulp in packaging papers
  6. Use, where plausible, of biodegradable flexible plastics (despite the predicted extension of prohibitions on oxo-degradable materials)
  7. Weight reduction—the economics of flexible packaging will continue to call for thinner substrates, and lifecycle analyses can highlight the CO2 savings it also gives in distribution compared to heavier rigid packaging materials

R&D in flexible packaging is being shaped by various actors—packaging converters, brand owners, governments, and ultimately consumers, Smithers observed: “The year 2025 is a key date. Many brands and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs) companies have committed to making some or all of their packaging fully recyclable by that date.”

Analysts noted, “This poses a challenge, as no universally accepted definition for ‘recyclable’ exists. The onus thus falls on the flexible packaging industry to highlight the advantages of its products and communicate how they can contribute to these circular economy goals.

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#8f8577″ class=”” size=””]”…with the emergence of circular economy models, there is a need to shift away from traditional weight reduction considerations to other strategies.”[/perfectpullquote]

“Furthermore, regional sensitivity is necessary. Across continents, countries and even within larger federal states, different waste management infrastructure, legislation, and consumer preferences exist. This adds a further layer of complexity to implementing effective moves to mitigate the pollution threat from flexible polymer formats.”

Development strategies that work in one region can be ineffective in others, according to market watchers. They said, “Several package development strategies are being considered to improve the sustainability of packaging. These include reductions in package weight, recyclable packaging, biodegradable packaging, sustainably sourced packaging, reusable packaging, recycled content into packaging and investments in waste management infrastructure.”

A summary of the major strategies identified by Smithers follows:

Investment in waste infrastructure by the package supply chain will be increasingly important to 2026. In developed countries it increases recyclate availability; in developing countries, it limits pollution