DOW
Collaboration with HP, Reifenhäuser for pouch-to-pouch recycling / Partners work on digital product passport
 The team used mechanical recycling and deinking to create a high-quality dishwasher MDO-PE pouch (Photo: Dow) |
Chemical giant Dow’s (Midland, Michigan / USA; www.dow.com) packaging and speciality plastics business unit is collaborating with Hewlett Packard’s (HP, Palo Alto, California / USA; www.hp.com) graphic solutions division “Indigo”, Reifenhäuser (Troisdorf / Germany; www.reifenhauser.com), Cadel Deinking (San Vicent del Raspeig / Spain; www.cadeldeinking.com) and Karlville (Miami, Florida / USA; www.karlville.com) to recycle polyethylene-based barrier pouches into high-quality PE pouches suitable for repeat recycling.
The team said it has used mechanical recycling and deinking to create a dishwasher MDO-PE (machine direction-oriented polyethylene) pouch containing 30% recycled content. The group explained that it is currently working to add digital traceability to the pouches in line with the R-Cycle initiative (see Plasteurope.com of 13.07.2020), which seeks to automatically record recycling-relevant packaging properties during production by providing digital product passports expected to make the pouch identifiable for recycling and sorting into single-type fractions.
Ralf Wiechmann, head of film innovation at Reifenhäuser, said, “For this project we’ve broadened our machinery expertise to co-extrude the new resins on our highly flexible EVO nine-layer blown film line and produce PE-based packaging films at fast line speeds. This project shows that we can both successfully produce recyclable packaging, according to Recyclass and Ceflex guidelines, and use recycled materials in high value applications if we collaborate effectively along the value chain.”
To create the pouch, HP says it reverse-printed the recyclable MDO-PE film on its 25K digital press with the dishwasher pouch artwork to have it ready for lamination, while Cadel used its technology for removing ink from the plastic surface to obtain near-virgin-material quality, thus making recycling more effective.
Laura Evangelio, senior technical service and development specialist for Dow packaging and specialty plastics, said, “The first PE-rich pouch was designed for recyclability with up to 5% EVOH in the total structure for barrier functionality, and Dow’s innovative resins provided a remarkable stiffness-toughness balance, low-temperature sealability, adhesion to extruded barrier layers and excellent bubble stability. For the second PE-based pouch we used a high-performing solventless adhesive to enable the lamination of the MDO-PE film to the PE-film containing recycled resins from the first pouch.”
The team said it has used mechanical recycling and deinking to create a dishwasher MDO-PE (machine direction-oriented polyethylene) pouch containing 30% recycled content. The group explained that it is currently working to add digital traceability to the pouches in line with the R-Cycle initiative (see Plasteurope.com of 13.07.2020), which seeks to automatically record recycling-relevant packaging properties during production by providing digital product passports expected to make the pouch identifiable for recycling and sorting into single-type fractions.
Ralf Wiechmann, head of film innovation at Reifenhäuser, said, “For this project we’ve broadened our machinery expertise to co-extrude the new resins on our highly flexible EVO nine-layer blown film line and produce PE-based packaging films at fast line speeds. This project shows that we can both successfully produce recyclable packaging, according to Recyclass and Ceflex guidelines, and use recycled materials in high value applications if we collaborate effectively along the value chain.”
To create the pouch, HP says it reverse-printed the recyclable MDO-PE film on its 25K digital press with the dishwasher pouch artwork to have it ready for lamination, while Cadel used its technology for removing ink from the plastic surface to obtain near-virgin-material quality, thus making recycling more effective.
Laura Evangelio, senior technical service and development specialist for Dow packaging and specialty plastics, said, “The first PE-rich pouch was designed for recyclability with up to 5% EVOH in the total structure for barrier functionality, and Dow’s innovative resins provided a remarkable stiffness-toughness balance, low-temperature sealability, adhesion to extruded barrier layers and excellent bubble stability. For the second PE-based pouch we used a high-performing solventless adhesive to enable the lamination of the MDO-PE film to the PE-film containing recycled resins from the first pouch.”
28.09.2021 Plasteurope.com [248645-0]
Published on 28.09.2021