Keeping previously non-recyclable flexible food packaging in circulation is the goal of the EU project “Circular FoodPack” launched in June 2021. The project is being conducted by 14 companies and research institutions from six European countries. Coordinated by Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging (IVV, Freising; www.ivv.fraunhofer.de), the research uses special codes in the form of fluorescent “tracers” printed on the packaging designed to send clear signals to sorting systems so packaging materials can be organised according to type with the help of suitable detection systems. The aim is to clearly separate non-food and food packaging waste.

The project, scheduled to run until November 2024 and backed with some EUR 5.4m in EU funding, is expected to produce results that include a life cycle analysis (LCA), including social and ecological impacts as well as an assessment of market and consumer needs. According to the project researchers, the separated plastics are to be processed using both mechanical and solvent-based recycling.

According to IVV, 87% of all flexible plastic multilayer composites in Europe are used for food packaging. Since such material combinations are inextricably linked, they cannot be used circularly with today’s recycling technologies. Instead, most of them end up in landfills or are incinerated.

So far, the waste streams from non-food and food packaging have not been separated. This means that the recycling of 14.3m t flexible post-consumer waste each year across the EU would be blocked by of 2m t of multi-layered packaging.