Australian packaging group Amcor (Hawthorn; www.amcor.com) has launched a recyclable high-barrier flexible polyolefin film. The development of “AmLite Ultra Recyclable”, which complements its existing “AmLite Standard Recyclable” product, is part of the company’s pledge to make all its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025.

Launched in 2015 – see Plasteurope.com of 09.10.2015 – the AmLite range uses an ultra-thin, transparent barrier coating that replaces aluminium and metallised barriers. Amcor said this change, combined with recycling ability, "can reduce a pack’s carbon footprint by up to 64%," based on a cradle-to-grave comparison with a PET/PE/aluminium foil laminate. “Our recyclable laminate delivers high-barrier protection, can be used on our customers’ filling machines and can be recycled where polyolefin collection and recycling streams exist,” explained Luca Zerbini, vice president of Amcor’s marketing, innovation and sustainability.

AmLite Ultra Recyclable can be used in various consumer segments, including food, home and personal care, and pharmaceuticals as well as in a variety of formats, such as pillow pouches, stand-up and spouted pouches, bags, lids for trays and containers, stick packs and more. Amcor said the ability to use recyclable flexible packaging will be a major shift for brand owners, as this type of packaging has been difficult to recycle. To overcome this limitation, Amcor has replaced the PET layer of the original AmLite packaging with a high-barrier OPP film. The packaging’s recyclability has been validated and certified by German testing facility cyclos-HTP (Aachen; www.cyclos-htp.de).

The Ultra-grade film is now available for broader customer trials. Amcor said its AmLite Standard Recyclable film, which provides medium- to high-barrier protection for ambient applications, is already on supermarket shelves, thanks to some early adopter brands. The company added that it continues to work with new polyolefin films to develop future products for even more demanding applications, such as recyclable packaging for retort processing.