Recyclable plastic packaging (Design for Recycling)

Check the information given by the supplier showing that the material packaging specification fulfil the requirement.

This requirement is a technical specification, which means that it shall be fulfilled by the supplier biding a tender. Upon request, the supplier shall be able to verify that the requirement is fulfilled. The material requirements for packaging and closures set contribute to improving the quality of the recycled raw material. This may drive up demand for recycled material as well as increasing the volume available on the market.

Scope

• The requirement includes both stiff and soft plastic packaging. Only packaging of mono-material of polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP) and transparent PET fulfil the requirement today. Note that low respectively high density polyethylene, LDPE and HDPE, are included as variants of PE. This means that halogenated plastics, e g PVC, can’t  be used in the packaging.
• The requirement can’t be set on laminate packaging layers of different plastics, which do not fulfil the requirement, e g sterile primary,  and also secondary, laminate packaging used within hospital care. Thicker monolayer packaging is often needed to moisture sensitive products. That is a reason for using at thinner laminate to the primary packaging.
• The packaging can be an integrated part of a medicinal technical product or a pharmaceutical product and is the considered as a part of the product and not a separate packaging.

It is important to have a dialogue with the market before setting the requirement to consider for which products groups and packaging layers to be relevant for application and if there is a market demand. Read more about market analysis.

Self-declaration in accordance with ISO/IEC 17029

There are currently no accredited verification bodies in accordance with ISO/IEC 17029 (Conformity assessment – General principles and requirements for validation and verification bodies) since it is a relatively new standard. However, this may change, especially if demand increases for verifying compliance with requirements in this way. This possibility is therefore included in the list of suggested verification methods. For more information, see the Swedac website.

Packaging shall be designed/constructed in such a way that the packaging can be easily sorted and the materials recycled. Design for recycling is a necessity in order to be able to promote a circular economy, as is also emphasised in the EU plastics strategy¹. It is important that plastic packaging is designed so as to be recyclable and that producers of plastic packaging take circularity into consideration during the design phase. It is important to be able to collect and reuse packaging and packaging in operational waste on a larger scale to promote a circular transition and ensure that these are not used for energy extraction.

Great environmental gains can be made by prioritising products and plastics for which there are already-existing recycling systems. Polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP) and clear, blow-moulded polyethylene terephthalate (PET) are plastics that can be recycled using systems available today, where they are used as mono-materials. Further information is available on the websites of sopor.nu and Näringslivets producentansvar (Trade Association Packaging Producer Responsibility).

Coloured packaging or dark packaging is more difficult to recycle because it can make optical sorting more difficult, and because the recycled plastic is stained in a way that cannot be removed. The requirement specifies that packaging coloured with carbon black does not meet the requirement because it is primarily the pigment that makes NIR (Near Infra Red) sorting more difficult.

The optimal material for the labels is that they are made of the same material as the packaging so that they can be easily washed off and separated, i.e. a PP bottle with a PP label is easiest to recycle. Even if a label is made of the same material as the packaging itself, it contains printing inks, glues and other substances that can be included in the recycling process.

However, it is not always possible to require the same plastic material in the bottle and label. Paper labels should also be avoided.

Packaging is by far the largest application for plastics, and flexible plastic packaging made from various types of plastic film is one of the fastest growing types of packaging². Plastic films are used, for example, in bags, wrappers and carrier bags. In industry and transport, shrink and stretch films are widely used to stabilize, protect and hold goods together. The reason for the popularity of flexible plastic packaging is primarily the strength and flexibility that plastic films exhibit, in relation to their weight. The most common plastic film is made of polyethylene, either low-density polyethylene (LDPE) or linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE)².

¹ The EU plastics strategy, January 2018 

² IVL (Swedish Environmental Research Institute) report C520, May 2020. Hållbar plastanvändning i förpackningsindustrin - med fokus på mjuka plastförpackningar (only in Swedish)

The version date indicates when the sustainability criterion was created or last updated. Last reviewed dated tells when we last checked that the sustainability criterion still is relevant.