Jean-Loup Masson, Chief Technical Advisor, Circular Solutions, at the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, highlights the challenges of recycling flexible plastic packaging and discusses the potential solution of advanced mechanical recycling through its Quest for Quality report.
Plastic packaging has transformed the convenience and shelf life of consumer products, but the issue of plastic waste cannot be ignored. While rigid plastics are more easily recycled, flexible plastics, like films and pouches, are significantly under-recycled, with their multi-layered composition making them much more complex to recycle.
The Alliance to End Plastic Waste set out to address this issue, collaborating with partners across the value chain to develop innovative plastic waste management solutions. Their recent Quest for Quality report demonstrated the viability of advanced mechanical recycling as a promising approach to managing household flexible plastic waste. With findings indicating that this method can yield high-quality recyclates, the report showcases how advanced mechanical recycling can serve alongside chemical recycling in fulfilling the demands of sustainable flexible packaging. The report also emphasises the need for systemic enablers to support sustainable practices and empower brands in meeting the European Union’s recycled content requirements by 2030, ultimately paving the way for enhanced circularity in flexible packaging.
The Innovation Platform spoke with Jean-Loup Masson, Chief Technical Advisor, Circular Solutions, at the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, to discuss the report and its findings, and to learn more about how the Alliance is approaching the challenge of flexible plastic waste management.
Can you provide an introduction to your report on advanced mechanical recycling and an overview of the key findings?
The Quest for Quality report draws on the findings of the ValueFlex initiative, a collaboration between the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, CEFLEX, Roland Berger, and HTP Engineering, to develop a commercially viable advanced mechanical recycling solution for household flexible plastic packaging waste. The project sought to address one of the sector’s biggest challenges: achieving closed-loop recycling by turning post-household flexible packaging back into high-quality packaging applications. While the facility was ultimately not built due to challenging macroeconomic conditions – notably persistently low virgin polymer prices – the project generated valuable technical, operational, and economic insights into scaling advanced mechanical recycling.
The report’s central finding is that existing sortation, washing, and extrusion technologies can convert post-consumer household flexibles into high-quality recyclates suitable for demanding applications such as shrink films, pouches and labels with 30%+ recycled content.
The report also makes clear that scaling high-quality outputs will depend on enabling the right system conditions, including robust EPR schemes, mandated recycled content targets and concessionary capital, which are vital to stimulate demand for recycled material and unlock the necessary investment.
Additionally, recyclers must transition from the conventional model of low-cost, high-volume ‘commodity’ processing towards a demand-driven strategy focused on delivering high-quality recyclates that satisfy converter and brand requirements for demanding film applications. This shift requires greater investment in advanced technologies and granular sorting, as well as deeper technical capabilities.
How is flexible plastic waste different from other types of plastic waste, and what challenges does it present in the recycling process?
Unlike rigid plastics, which are typically made from a single type of polymer, flexible plastics such as films, wraps, and pouches are typically constructed from multiple layers of different polymers, adhesives, inks, and barrier coatings. This multi-material, multi-layer structure delivers exceptional functionality, helping to extend food shelf life, protect goods in shipment and offer a highly convenient packaging option for consumers, as well as for brands.
While some flexible packaging designs are readily recyclable, others are not designed with recycling in mind. Even recyclable designs often need to be separated before recycling, due to differences in colour or polymer type (for example, PE or PP), which creates an additional challenge.
The thin, lightweight format of flexible packaging and films also creates practical challenges for cost-efficient collection and processing, with films sometimes clogging sorting equipment and sticking to other waste.
Despite these challenges, the Quest for Quality report demonstrates that on a technical level, household flexible plastic waste can be recycled into premium recyclates for demanding applications. The next step is unlocking advanced mechanical recycling for flexibles at scale through systemic policy support and financing mechanisms that enable investment, infrastructure development, and stable end-market demand for recycled materials.
What is the current state of flexible plastic waste management, and why is it a pressing issue?
Flexible plastic packaging now accounts for more than half of the global plastic packaging market by volume, yet it remains one of the least-recycled material streams. The vast majority of flexible plastic waste is either landfilled, incinerated, or leaks into the environment. Where flexibles are recycled, they are primarily channelled into applications such as plastic lumber, other construction materials, trash bags and bin liners. This is because flexible plastic packaging remains one of the most difficult packaging formats to recycle into high-value applications.
By 2030, brands, retailers and packaging producers must ensure that all non-food packaging contains 35% post-consumer recycled content in compliance with the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR). As brands, retailers, and packaging producers work towards PPWR compliance, the need for scalable recycling pathways has never been more critical. The Quest for Quality affirms that the technical solutions exist. The challenge now is creating the conditions for commercial scale. Robust EPR schemes, recycled content targets, concessionary capital, and strong end-market demand are essential to unlock investment in advanced recycling infrastructure and accelerate adoption.
What is mechanical recycling, and how does it compare with/complement other methods of plastic recycling?
Mechanical recycling is the physical processing of plastic waste to produce recycled material without altering its fundamental chemical structure. The process includes sorting, washing, melting, and extruding. Conventional mechanical recycling is designed for homogeneous, relatively clean feedstocks, and struggles to meet the quality requirements of modern flexible film production.
Advanced mechanical recycling addresses this gap by deploying sophisticated sensor-based sorting, hot-washing systems, and double-melt filtration to produce recyclates of a quality suitable for demanding applications. As outlined in our Quest for Quality report, advanced mechanical recycling can deliver recycled film suitable for demanding applications with recycled content levels of 30% or more.
Advanced mechanical recycling, solvent-based recycling and chemical recycling (e.g. pyrolysis) play complementary roles, with each approach suited to different fractions of the flexible plastics waste stream and different end-use applications. For example, chemical recycling is better suited to targeting food-contact applications.
Can you explain the concept of upstream sorting and its significance in improving the recyclability of flexible plastics?
Upstream sorting involves shifting the burden of sorting flexible plastics away from individual recycling plants to large-scale, centralised Plastics Recovery Facilities (PRFs), which sit between material recovery facilities (MRFs) and recyclers. In markets where collection and primary sorting systems are already well established, this can play an important role in scaling advanced mechanical recycling.
Our economic analysis of a 50,000-tonne-per-year advanced mechanical recycling plant for flexible plastics found that sorting infrastructure accounts for around a quarter of total capital expenditure. When individual recycling facilities have to process mixed, contaminated bales themselves, they can lose around half of the material before it can be recycled, increasing transportation, storage, material purchasing, and disposal costs.
Moving sorting upstream into large-scale, centralised PRFs would allow flexible plastic waste to be cleaned and separated more efficiently before it reaches recyclers, creating cleaner and more consistent feedstocks. By consolidating sorting in large-scale facilities, economies of scale can be achieved, and capital requirements and yield losses at individual recycling facilities can be reduced. It also allows recyclers to specialise in processing specific polymer streams and producing high-quality recycled materials for specific end uses. Lowering these barriers can also accelerate investment in advanced mechanical recycling capacity.
The report also notes the value of brownfield site upgrades. What are brownfield sites and what opportunity do they present?
Building a new recycling facility from scratch is expensive. In our economic analysis of a 50,000-tonne-per-year advanced mechanical recycling plant for flexible plastics, we found that civil infrastructure alone – buildings, roads, utilities, warehousing – accounts for roughly 30% of total capital costs.
Therefore, a highly viable pathway to scaling capacity is through brownfield development. By leveraging existing facilities or implementing a ‘scrap-and-build’ approach to upgrade current equipment, operators can drastically reduce initial capital exposure.
What systemic conditions and policy frameworks are essential for making advanced mechanical recycling of flexible plastics economically viable at scale, and how can specific policy interventions help overcome existing barriers?
The Quest for Quality demonstrates that the technology to produce high-quality recyclates from post-consumer flexible plastics already exists. However, advanced mechanical recycling cannot currently compete with virgin plastics on market forces alone, and significant market and financial interventions are required if the technology is to be deployed at scale.
Mandated recycled content targets, for example, are essential, stimulating demand for high-quality recyclates and justifying further investment in flexible recycling infrastructure. As investment flows, scale increases and recycled materials can become increasingly cost-competitive with virgin plastics.
In parallel, strong EPR frameworks are critical in helping to fund the upstream collection and sorting infrastructure needed to supply high-quality feedstock to recycling facilities. Access to concessionary capital also plays a vital role. Subsidies, development grants, and tax incentives lower the cost of capital, boosting overall business profitability and reducing the risk for first-of-a-kind infrastructure investments.
The report indicates a need for recyclers to shift their operational philosophy. What specific changes are necessary, and how can this change in mindset be encouraged?
Flexible plastic recyclers have traditionally operated on a model built around processing large volumes at the lowest possible cost. To scale up advanced mechanical recycling, they need to shift towards producing high-quality recycled materials that meet the demanding specifications of brands and packaging manufacturers.
This requires accepting higher capital and operational expenditures to invest in advanced technologies and more granular sorting, even if this results in lower initial yields and increased residue disposal costs. While these trade-offs can be challenging, they are necessary for producing premium recyclates that can compete with virgin materials in demanding applications.
Beyond the operational changes, recyclers also need to build new capabilities, including stronger analytical expertise. Commercially, they need to move away from being commodity suppliers to long-term strategic partners to brands and converters, delivering the consistency, quality, and reliability traditional petrochemical producers offer.
Encouraging this shift requires long-term commitment from company leadership and confidence that there will be sustained demand for high-quality recycled materials. Transitioning to advanced mechanical recycling takes time and significant investment, making a clear commercial case and long-term partnerships with customers essential to supporting that change.
How does the report align with the Alliance’s broader initiatives and objectives in managing flexible plastic waste, in particular through the Flexibles Thematic Program?
Our Flexibles Program is focused on closing the systemic gaps that have limited the circularity of flexible plastic packaging. While technologies to recycle flexible plastics exist, they often struggle to scale due to fragmented collection and sorting systems, inconsistent feedstock quality, limited end-market demand for recycled materials, and a lack of investment certainty. Most importantly, existing technologies are not yet combined into a fully integrated value chain, from collection to high-quality pellets, to demonstrate true and optimised circular performance.
The Program addresses these barriers through projects across Europe and North America that strengthen the entire value chain – from collection and sorting to recycling and end markets. It is underpinned by the premise that advancing flexible plastic circularity must start with end-market demand. Without a clear market for recycled materials, investments in collection and recycling infrastructure cannot scale.
The Quest for Quality report is an example of this approach in action. It demonstrates that post-household flexible plastic waste can be turned into high-quality recyclate for demanding end-use applications, helping build confidence in both the technical and commercial viability of advanced mechanical recycling. By making the plant design, engineering and economic assessments publicly available, the report provides practical guidelines for recyclers, brands, and policymakers looking to replicate and scale these solutions.
Please note, this article will also appear in the 27th edition of our quarterly publication.
