Mono-material flexible films, typically made from polyethylene, remain one of the toughest packaging materials to recycle because they’re lightweight, often contaminated, and not widely accepted in curbside programs or processed at scale. Yet the pace of progress is picking up, driven by collaboration, better data, and targeted strategies.
In his session, “Collaborations to Scale Flexible Film Recycling in the U.S.,” at Packaging World’s 2025 Packaging Recycling Summit, Kurt Kurzawa senior director of the Flexible Film Recycling Alliance (FFRA), a self-funded initiative of the Plastics Industry Assn. (PLASTICS), opened with a reminder that flexible packaging is the second largest packaging type in the U.S., behind only corrugated. “Flexible film as a whole continues to grow,” he said. “So this problem keeps getting bigger and bigger.” While it’s estimated that roughly 9 million tons of flexible packaging are generated each year in the U.S., current recycling rates are less than 1%.
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One bright spot is store drop-off. According to Kurzawa, Americans return about 114,000 tons of flexible film annually through store drop-off programs, which is about 11 times more than is collected curbside. But that’s still just a fraction of what’s out there.
To improve collection and capture, FFRA relaunched the online Flexible Film Recycling Directory in early 2025. “We already have over 20,000 drop-off locations listed and more than 85,000 unique users,” said Kurzawa. What’s more, users are spending time engaging with the site, clicking through FAQs and even taking quizzes to better understand what’s recyclable and how to prepare it. “Those are some pretty big numbers when you’re talking about consumer engagement,” he added.
FFRA
FFRA’s work also extends beyond collection. The group has convened a peer collaborative of organizations, including the Flexible Packaging Association (FPA), The Recycling Partnership (TRP), the American Chemistry Council (ACC), CAA, and others to harmonize efforts across the value chain. Together, they’ve launched three shared workstreams focused on California strategy, national policy alignment, and end-market mapping. The goal is to move in lockstep to make recycling film economically viable and scalable.
End-market development is particularly urgent. Although some existing infrastructure is underutilized today, FFRA projects that if California reaches its 2032 target of 65% recycling, current reprocessing capacity would only be able to handle about 7% of the volume. “There needs to be a tremendous amount of investment in processing,” Kurzawa said.
Consumer education is another critical piece. FFRA is working with the Shelton Group and the FPA on a study to pinpoint which messages can shift behavior in an attempt to move people from “rarely” to “sometimes” to “most of the time” when it comes to separating and returning film packaging. According to Kurzawa, results of the study will be revealed at the FPA’s FlexForward 2025 conference in November. “Obviously it’s an involvement in community, but we’re trying to tease those insights out right now,” he explained.
Regarding collection, there is growing interest in curbside access. “Ultimately, that’s the North Star,” Kurzawa said. However, economics make that goal difficult to reach, with residential curbside film recycling costing roughly $3,000 per ton to process. Still, technology like optical sortation and AI is making it easier, and FFRA is working with groups like CAA and others to explore curbside-retail hybrid models. Pilots like a secondary sort facility in Chicago, supported by FFRA and TRP, aim to demonstrate the added value of recovering film from MRF bales and diverting it to viable end markets.
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As efforts to expand recovery evolve, so too does the need for clearer guidance on what’s truly recyclable. That’s where How2Recycle is stepping in with a data-backed response. Paul Nowak, executive director of GreenBlue, another FFPA partner, shared that the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) will be launching a new collaborative focused on non-curbside labels, including store drop-off, municipal drop-off, and subscription services. The goal is to improve labeling language and design, and ensure that what’s communicated to consumers reflects actual system performance. “Store drop-off is in these conversations not because it’s store drop-off,” said Nowak, “but because it’s a stream of recyclability.”
As more brands rely on store drop-off to meet EPR requirements, How2Recycle is working to future-proof the label, ensuring it remains both legally compliant and operationally feasible. “This is happening,” said Nowak. “It will continue to evolve. The label will not go away.”
Together, these efforts represent a multi-pronged push to give flexible films a fighting chance at circularity. “Flexible films aren’t going anywhere,” Kurzawa said. “And unless we want to totally change the way we process material, we need to work with our competition to get the industry there collectively.” PW
