Multimaterial packaging is, first and foremost, an ingenious solution: each layer exists for a precise technical reason, and it is their combination that ensures product protection, durability, and preservation. The challenge at hand is not about the packaging itself, but rather the current stage of the recycling chain. The components of these packages are essentially recyclable, but the technologies widely available today still struggle to process structures composed of distinct polymers and materials.<\/p>\n
Even those undergoing through all the stages of the recycling process, primary sorting, shredding, washing and sorting by color, density and other properties, the resulting resin may not achieve the quality required by the market, limiting its applications and reducing its added value. Therefore, we are talking about recyclability: not just the nature of the material, but the quality of the resin it can generate using the technologies available today.<\/p>\n
The different layers of plastic packaging are in most cases, made of distinct polymers, and sometimes even aluminum layers, each selected for a highly specific technical reason. The challenge lies not in the materials themselves, but in their compatibility during the large-scale mechanical recycling processes available today.<\/p>\n
A prime example is the combination of PE (polyethylene) and EVOH (ethylene vinyl alcohol), which is very common in food packaging. EVOH plays an essential role in these structures: it forms the oxygen barrier layer, extending product shelf life and even contributing to the reduction of food waste.<\/p>\n
However, these two polymers have distinct processing temperatures and melting behaviors, which can alter the melt flow index of the recycled resin and compromise the color and performance of the final material. This is not a matter of poor design, but rather a limitation of the large-scale mechanical recycling technologies currently available, which it is worth noting, continue to evolve.<\/p>\n
Packaging composed of a single type of plastic eliminates the layer separation stage, making recycling faster and more efficient. Consequently, the result is a higher-quality resin suitable for more applications, which increases its added value and attracts the interest of the entire chain, from waste collectors to converters.<\/p>\n
Because each material provides specific and essential characteristics: mechanical strength, impermeability, gas barriers and light protection. Together, these properties ensure product preservation in the most effective way and quite often, it is precisely these characteristics that make it possible to reduce the packaging volume used, prevent product loss and extend shelf life. Therefore, developing monomaterial solutions that offer equivalent protection is a real technical challenge, and it is exactly in this field that innovation has been advancing.<\/p>\n
Sustainability has always guided Valgroup’s operations. That is why we invest in developing solutions that strengthen the circular economy without compromising on performance. In our portfolio, you will find sustainable and innovative monomaterial packaging solutions, developed to meet market demands as well as environmental needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Although multimaterial plastic packaging components are essentially recyclable, nowadays recycling this type of waste is still a challenge for the circular economy due to a lack of technologies for the efficient separation of these different components, which makes the process laborious and costly from start to finish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[163,165,166],"tags":[],"table_tags":[325,327,324,326,320],"class_list":["post-2890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economia_circular","category-inovacao","category-produtos","table_tags-easy-cycle","table_tags-economia-circular","table_tags-embalagem-monomaterial","table_tags-inovacao","table_tags-monomaterial"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.valgroupco.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/BANNER-BLOG-MONOMATERIAL.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valgroupco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valgroupco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valgroupco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valgroupco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valgroupco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2890"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.valgroupco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12817,"href":"https:\/\/www.valgroupco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2890\/revisions\/12817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valgroupco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valgroupco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valgroupco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valgroupco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2890"},{"taxonomy":"table_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valgroupco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/table_tags?post=2890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}