Multilayers packaging recycling: the Terminus strategy

Multilayer packaging films are highly versatile and largely exploited materials in the food industry, because they extend the lifetime of goods, helping to reduce food waste. Multilayer films are a combination of two or more thermoplastics co-extruded or laminated to form one homogenous film with distinct individual layers, in this way the ultimate material provides a range of properties which cannot be obtained from monolayer films [1,2]. With the increase of the number of their everyday-life applications, the volume of these laminated products in municipal solid waste has continuously increased and their recyclability has become an environmental and socio-economical issue, since they are unrecyclable and currently 100% of multi-layer packaging is incinerated or landfilled, only for beverage cartons recyclability is demonstrated in practice and at scale [3].

The H2020 TERMINUS project addresses the challenge of unlocking the recycling and reuse of flexible multi-layer and multi-compound packaging through the design of new formulations with smart enzyme-containing adhesive or tie layer polymers. After a specific trigger, the enzyme will start degrading the polyurethane-based adhesive (PUR) or tie layer (TL), thus enabling the delamination of the different layers of packaging, which can then be recycled.