Siegwerk and Borouge have joined forces to co-develop 100% recyclable mono-material solutions, aiming to advance packaging design for a circular economy. This partnership seeks to replace multi-material packaging with advanced mono-material structures, offering the same performance while being easier to recycle.
“The switch to mono-material packaging is an essential lever to ease the recycling of packaging and thus enhance its circularity,” says Dr. Stephane Bertaux, Head of Brand Owner Collaboration and Circular Economy for Southeast Asia at Siegwerk Thailand.
The collaboration aims to address challenges associated with mono-material structures, such as ensuring reliable sealability, mechanical properties, thermal stability, and specific levels of barrier performance. “Enabling mono-material structures using Borouge’s performance polyethylene products with the combination of innovative ink and coating technologies can achieve the desired packaging outcomes,” adds Anton Wolfsberger, Vice President, Global Marketing, Packaging, and Circular Economy at Borouge Pte Ltd.
One of the initial co-development projects between the two companies will focus on a barrier stand-up pouch using Borealis Borstar® technology-based enhanced HDPE FB5600 from Borouge, Siegwerk’s oxygen barrier coating CIRKIT OxyBar BC1582, and its primer solution CIRKIT Clearprime. This structure aims to facilitate the removal of all used inks and coatings during the recycling process, resulting in high-quality recycled polyethylene suitable for reuse in new packaging materials.
Siegwerk and Borouge are already collaborating with selected converters worldwide to make high barrier mono-material packaging solutions available, combining oxygen and moisture vapor barrier coatings.
Both companies are committed to contributing to sustainable packaging through mono-material structures, which can replace hard-to-recycle multi-material packaging. This partnership underscores the importance of collaboration along the packaging supply chain to accelerate the transformation to a Circular Economy.