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Monolayer Materials Help Bring Plastics Full Circle

Brand announcements about packaging material usage shifts are coming in faster than we can post them on our website or write about them in our print pages.

Matt Reynolds, Editor, Packaging World
Matt Reynolds, Editor, Packaging World

As you might’ve predicted, single-use plastics—especially those that can’t obviously and easily be recycled—are almost universally the legacy format that brands are moving away from. And the replacement materials? For the most part, it’s a mix of paperboard, aluminum, and particularly interesting, more recyclable monolayer PE, PP, or PET materials.

In Packaging World's April news section alone, we highlight two distinct package redesigns from plastic to paperboard, one where soups from Heinz UK are in a WestRock multipack solution, and the other with Czech microbrew Pivovar Clock using a Smurfit Kappa can handle format. Why paperboard? We hear that its recycling profile, as a paper-based product, is a “no-brainer” for consumers who confidently assume “I can recycle this.” Is that always true for every municipality? Maybe not. But paper and fiber have a decided recognizability advantage when it comes to recycling.

Aluminum shares that advantage, and you’ll find that announcements of brands switching from plastic to aluminum frequently tout the material’s “infinite” recyclability, i.e. practically no degradation from virgin to recycled material throughout the practically limitless cycles. In next month’s issue, we’re already lining up a number of recent examples from the personal care product space where brands are moving from single-use plastic, usually HDPE, to aluminum. Brands are making this switch even though they face an aluminum shortage and in spite of the fact that the legacy HDPE bottles are plenty recyclable.

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