Policymakers will need to step up to increase recycling rates for plastics, warned Joachim Oberbauer, film extrusion sales manager at blown film line manufacturer Hosokawa Alpine (Augsburg, Germany; www.hosokawa-alpine.com).

In an interview with the German Plastics and Rubber Machinery Trade Association (KuG, Frankfurt; www.kug.vdma.org) within the country’s engineering association VDMA, he said, “It won’t work without political pressure, without specifications, and also without political incentives.”

There is a large amount of interest in the use of recycled materials, and the trend is rising, he noted, pointing out clear regional differences. “Europe has already made significant progress, but Asia is still lagging behind.” India is an exception in his view, with the subcontinent setting ambitious targets to increase the use of recycled material in the coming years.

“If we know that a customer wants to use recyclates, we design our machines accordingly,” Oberbauer said, describing the technical challenges facing machine builders. If this step is taken, plants are also able to cope with fluctuations in material composition. “The purity of the granulate is crucial. Especially with thin films of 20 µm to 30 µm, any interfering material can be a problem.”

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Currently, the trend in the production of films for flexible disposable packaging is moving away from multi-layer and towards mono-material concepts. However, a higher recycling rate also requires the improvement of existing collection systems. As Oberbauer said, products should ideally be designed so that they can be made from one category of plastics.