Businesses could create demand for as much as 800,000 tonnes of recycled household flexible plastics each year, but researchers warn that collecting more waste will not be enough without viable markets for the recovered material.
The push to recycle more flexible plastic packaging faces a fundamental problem: what happens to the material after it has been collected and processed?
Businesses could create annual demand for as much as 800,000 tonnes of recycled household flexible plastics, helping ensure that recycling targets can be met, according to a new study by Delterra and Eunomia, supported by Amcor and Kraft Heinz.
The findings put market demand at the center of the recycling challenge. Less than 5% of flexible plastics are currently recycled, while fewer than 30 reclaimers in North America are able to mechanically recycle polyethylene film.
As Extended Producer Responsibility, or EPR, programs introduce higher recycling targets, the pressure to collect greater quantities of plastic is set to increase. Some single-use plastic packaging categories face recycling targets of as much as 65% by 2032.
The study’s conclusion is that greater collection needs to be accompanied by sufficient demand for the recycled material.
RELEVANT SUSTAINABLE GOALS
Recycling More Plastic Is Only Half the Challenge
The study examined more than 40 potential applications for recycled household flexible plastics, assessing both their technical feasibility and how much material each could absorb by 2032.
The analysis highlights an important distinction in the development of a circular economy. Collecting and sorting more plastic does not by itself ensure that the recovered material will find another productive use.
For recycling rates to increase, manufacturers need viable applications capable of consuming recycled plastics in meaningful quantities.
Shannon Bouton, president and chief executive of Delterra, said the value of recycling ultimately depends on turning recovered materials into useful inputs for new goods.
A circular economy isn’t created by collecting more material – it’s created when recycled materials become valuable inputs for new products.
Without demand from manufacturers, Bouton said, efforts to improve collection and sorting could simply move the bottleneck elsewhere in the recycling system.
Manufacturers Could Generate Demand for 800,000 Tonnes a Year
The study identified a substantial potential market if recycled flexible plastics can be incorporated successfully into suitable products. Businesses could generate demand for as much as 800,000 tonnes annually.
The researchers assessed potential end uses based not simply on their sustainability ambitions, but on whether recycled household polyethylene film could technically be incorporated and whether the applications were large enough to consume significant volumes.
That approach is particularly important as EPR programs raise recycling requirements.
If more flexible plastics enter recycling systems without corresponding growth in demand for recycled output, increased collection alone may not be sufficient to achieve the intended circularity.
Bouton said identifying practical uses could broaden the discussion beyond the front end of recycling.
Unless manufacturers create demand for the material coming out of recycling systems, we simply shift the bottleneck from collection and sorting to market demand.
By establishing where recycled household flexible plastics could successfully be used, she said, the study aims to help shift attention toward building the markets required to make higher recycling rates possible.
Eight Applications Offer the Highest Potential
Of the more than 40 applications examined, researchers identified eight with the greatest potential to provide technically feasible, high-volume markets for recycled household polyethylene film.
The opportunities include industrial liners, impermeable construction membranes and dark-coloured trash bags. Other promising uses include injection-moulded rigid products and thicker-gauge, mixed-colour film applications.
The findings suggest that a relatively small number of end uses could account for a large share of overall demand. The three largest opportunities alone could absorb approximately 600,000 tonnes of recycled flexible plastics every year.
That represents 75% of the total estimated potential demand identified by the study.
Real-World Testing Will Determine What Works
Finding potential applications, however, is only the beginning.
The report says manufacturers and converters will need to test recycled flexible plastics under real-world conditions before those theoretical markets can become established sources of demand.
Those tests will need to determine how the recycled materials perform technically and whether they meet necessary standards for quality and economics.
The challenge is therefore not simply finding products that could contain recycled plastic on paper. Manufacturers need evidence that recycled flexible plastics can perform effectively and make economic sense when incorporated into actual production.
Sarah Edwards, North America director and private lead at Eunomia, said building reliable markets requires a realistic assessment of those constraints.
The hardest part of building markets for recycled materials isn’t ambition – it’s honestly assessing what’s technically and economically feasible and being willing to follow the evidence where it leads.
Technical and Economic Feasibility Will Shape the Market
The emphasis on feasibility comes as recycling systems face pressure to handle greater quantities of flexible plastic packaging.
With fewer than 30 North American reclaimers currently capable of mechanically recycling polyethylene film and less than 5% of flexible plastics being recycled, increasing recovery rates represents only one part of the transition.
The other is ensuring that recovered material has somewhere economically and technically viable to go.
For manufacturers and converters, that means determining whether recycled flexible plastics can meet the performance, quality and cost requirements associated with the applications identified by the research.
Edwards said rigorous analysis is essential if sustainability objectives are to translate into functioning markets.
That rigour is what turns good intentions into real markets. Getting the analysis right on which end uses can actually work is the foundation everything else depends on.
A Circular Plastics Economy Depends on Buyers as Well as Recyclers
The study ultimately shifts part of the focus in plastics recycling from how much material can be collected to how much recycled material businesses can actually use.
EPR programs may increase recycling targets, including requirements reaching 65% for some single-use plastic packaging categories by 2032. But higher targets will bring larger quantities of material into collection and processing systems.
The research suggests that creating markets for that output will be critical.
With eight applications identified as particularly promising, potential annual demand reaching 800,000 tonnes, and the three largest opportunities accounting for around 600,000 tonnes, manufacturers have potential pathways for putting recycled household flexible plastics back into productive use.
The next test is whether those opportunities can deliver the technical performance, quality and economics required in real-world manufacturing. The study’s central message is that higher collection rates and functioning markets need to develop together if ambitious recycling targets are to be met.
