Recycling of film packaging
The fact that a large amount of plastic waste is generated in healthcare facilities every day is by no means surprising. Since many medical devices, such as syringes or infusion tubes, are single-use products and must be packaged in sterile conditions, waste cannot be completely avoided. Even though they are colloquially referred to as "plastic waste", they are actually made of valuable secondary raw materials. Unfortunately, not all packaging can be easily and completely recycled. Film packaging, such as that used for flow packs of ready-to-use disinfectant wipes, also presents numerous challenges. Here, it is worth taking a closer look at the exact composition of the material and, as a manufacturer, improving its recyclability. The following applies: The fewer different materials come together and the higher the proportion of a particular material in the composite, the easier it is to return the valuable material to the economic cycle.
Multilayer composite foils are flexible films that consist of layers of different plastics, none of which is predominant (> 95%). Plastics frequently used in multilayer composite foils include polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP) or polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Such foils are ideal for packaging products in a safe and durable manner. They also reduce transport-related emissions due to their light weight [1]. However, their recyclability usually leaves much to be desired, because the different plastics are so tightly interwoven that they cannot be separated and thus cannot be clearly assigned to a specific recyclable material cycle (e.g., that for PE or PP) [1, 2]. These materials are therefore not recycled, but incinerated like residual waste.
If film packaging consists of at least 95% one plastic material - usually PE or PP - this plastic is referred to as mono-material and the foils as mono-material foils (also known as "mono foils"). Mono foils can also be multilayered to improve the desired properties (e.g., protecting the product from air or light). Current models for evaluating recyclability recommend that manufacturers of packaging films increasingly rely on mono-material foils in the future [1-3]. Since these can be recycled well into the material cycle, mono foils help to save resources.
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