CEFLEX secures UK Research and Innovation funding for flexible packaging design testing

03 Mar 2022 --- UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has awarded The Circular Economy for Flexible Packaging (CEFLEX) initiative funding for a flexible packaging design testing program. The collaboration will co-fund investigations into how flexible packaging can be designed for sorting, recycling and boosting circular economy applications. 

An extensive testing program will draw on a network of leading laboratories, universities and industry experts, generating data to update and improve the “Designing for a Circular Economy” guidelines (D4ACE) originally issued in 2020.

CEFLEX indicates the results of this testing program will deepen understanding of specific design elements and their impact on sorting and recyclability. Together with increasing levels of collection, sorting and recycling of flexible packaging, they will further improve the quantity and quality of recycled materials.

“By strengthening our efforts through collaboration with UKRI and increasing understanding of exactly how different materials and elements in a flexible packaging structure affect sortability and recyclability, we can address essential gaps in knowledge and apply this in practice,” notes Graham Houlder, project coordinator at CEFLEX.

Improved access to recycled materials is essential to delivering on UK Plastics Pact targets and developing a circular economy for flexible packaging across Europe. Meanwhile, recycled plastic prices have skyrocketed worldwide as industries fight for control over the market to boost their environmental sustainability credentials.

Plastics for the future
The UKRI Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging (SSPP) Challenge aims to make plastic packaging “fit for a [environmentally] sustainable future.” It has identified advancing CEFLEX design guidelines as an important element in addressing some key barriers to change. 

“Films and flexibles are the final frontiers in the drive toward more [environmentally] sustainable plastic packaging, and higher recycling rates will be essential if we are to achieve the UK Plastics Pact’s 2025 targets,” says SSPP Challenge director Paul Davidson.

“I am delighted that SSPP Challenge funding will support and accelerate the testing and trials needed to provide the underpinning evidence base for CEFLEX’s D4ACE guidelines.”

A peer review of existing data by Queens University Belfast (UK), University of Maastricht (the Netherlands) and University of Gent (Belgium) has been undertaken to help prepare the program, ensuring the testing is targeted and effective at building on current understanding and data.

Filling knowledge gaps
The project will be co-funded by the challenge, with up to £500,000 (US$669,000) being made available by UKRI, which CEFLEX stakeholder contributions will match. 

“During the development of the initial D4ACE guidelines, a number of knowledge gaps were identified that need to be filled and supported by more testing and data,” explains Liz Morrish, design lead at CEFLEX. 

“This phase 2 testing program is a catalyst for pushing state-of-the-art understanding forward. It will improve design choices by understanding how flexible packaging moves throughout end-of-life processes and generates value in a circular economy.”

Testing will also be conducted to understand if and how the flexible packaging structures not currently widely sorted and mechanically recycled in existing polyethylene, polypropylene and mixed-polyolefin waste streams can be technically sorted and recycled.

Last year, CEFLEX published a position statement emphasizing that the collection of flexible packaging waste is central to achieving a circular economy in Europe.

By Joshua Poole

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