Rigid and flexible food packaging is critical to minimizing food waste, ensuring stable global food distribution and access and for ensuring food safety. Yet unless clear, effective and locally available recycling/reuse processes are available, despite the importance of polymer packaging, it can add significant environmental burden, especially to end of life challenges. Currently, most disposable food packaging materials, regardless of raw material base, are not circular, i.e reusable, recyclable, or degradable. Thus, there is a desire to provide products that meet the increased consumer,...

One of the most challenging aspects of polyolefin recycling is the post-consumer mixed waste stream. In addition to variabilities in recyclate composition, the similar densities and chemistries of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) make the recyclates challenging to separate, however, the immiscibility of PE and PP lead to poor mechanical properties of their blends. This session will highlight the latest developments in the field of mixed polyolefin recycling, with an emphasis on fundamental research still needed to accelerate progress in mechanical and chemical recycling, recyclate...

Developing innovative ways to recycle plastics is an important and pressing challenge for industry and academy, given its significant impact on CO2 emissions as well as improvement of resource-efficiency and reduction of landfilling. Chemical recycling allows for the transformation of various types of plastic waste from single-polymer and mixed waste streams back into their original components. By creating a new, secondary virgin-quality raw material, chemical recycling can help close the loop and reduce the consumption of fossil resources. While progress has been made in the chemolytic...