Multilayer packaging protects fresh food products and keeps them hygienic through the properties, thereby extending the shelf life of food.
The extended shelf-life of foods is particularly important with regard to the global food supply – one third of all food produced worldwide is spoiled before it reaches consumers’ plates. Smart solutions with multilayer packaging can play a part in reducing this waste. Multilayer packaging is sustainable: it does not require much material and can now also be produced from chemically recycled material.
Low recycling
However, multilayer packaging could only be recycled to a limited extent, because mechanical recycling processes are not suitable for composite materials.
‘Within the ChemCyling project, BASF is working on advancing the chemical recycling of plastic waste, because this will make it possible to process and reuse previously non-recyclable plastics such as mixed plastics. In collaboration with our partners, we have now for the first time produced a prototype packaging made of chemically recycled polyamide and polyethylene. This goes to show that the recycling of multilayer packaging could soon come full circle’, explained Christoph Gahn, who is responsible for the polyamide business at BASF.
Collaboration
This pilot project was made possible thanks to the collaboration between the four partners BASF, Borealis, Südpack and Zott. BASF supplies chemically recycled polyamide, while Borealis provides sustainably produced polyethylene. Südpack, producer of film packaging for food products, uses these materials to produce multilayer film for a specially sealed Mozzarella packaging for Zott Gourmet Dairy.
The raw materials for polyamide and polyethylene were produced in very small quantities as part of the ChemCycling project. The pyrolysis oil derived from plastic waste was supplied by a partner and fed into BASF’s Verbund production site in Ludwigshafen as feedstock. According to the certified mass balance method, both plastics have an allocated 100% share of recycled materials.
www.basf.com
www.borealisgroup.com
www.suedpack.com/en/
www.zott-dairy.com