New Report Published on Flexible Packaging Insights for Europe and North America
The Alliance to End Plastic Waste has published a new report, The Challenges and Solutions for Flexible Plastic Packaging Waste: Insights for Europe and North America. The report outlines the major barriers to achieving circularity in flexible plastic packaging and highlights the essential role of cross‑industry collaboration in scaling effective recycling systems. Flexible plastics are identified as a critical priority for advancing circular economy progress and are cited as representing around 50% of global plastic packaging.
The report sets out five critical enablers needed to unlock circularity for flexible plastics:
- Improving collection and sorting to generate high‑quality feedstock for recycling.
- Creating strong end‑market demand for recycled materials to ensure system viability and support investment across the value chain.
- De‑risking investment to attract and sustain capital for infrastructure upgrades.
- Embedding design‑for‑recyclability to harmonise material choices and reduce complexity that hinders recycling.
- Implementing eco‑modulated EPR fees to incentivise simpler, recyclable packaging and ensure fair competition.
The report also highlights the Alliance’s three‑year Flexibles Program which is an integrated, three‑part strategy focused on market mapping, technology demonstrations and stakeholder collaboration. This programme aims to accelerate the development of scalable recycling infrastructure and drive the transition to a circular economy for flexible plastics.
The full report, including detailed insights on the challenges, solutions and systems enablers for the flexible packaging sector, is available to download and read here.