Why PA

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One material

Countless advantages for businesses and consumers

Known for many decades for its outstanding technical properties for food packaging, such as flexibility, puncture resistance and optimal machinability, polyamide is a material offering substantial benefits in terms of sustainability: it makes it possible to create extremely thin packaging, which means reducing the amount of packaging waste, and it helps improve the recyclate quality at the end of life phase, which in turns leads to the reduction of the amount of plastics being landfilled or incinerated. The other technical advantages of polyamide, such as its excellent aroma and gas barrier properties, when used in advanced packaging for food, make a longer shelf life possible. This in turns helps reduce the amount of food waste. And last but not least, advanced packaging solutions containing polyamide help create an ideal visual experience for consumers, when holding the product in their hands.

thermoformability

aroma and gas barrier

puncture resistance

Strong. Safe. Light.

Applications that improve quality of life

Polyamide is a polymer that has improved the quality of life of people around the globe, keeping food fresh and ensuring the health and wellbeing of consumers. The versatile benefits of PA when used in the food industry make it an important component of vacuum (shrink) bags, thermo-formed flexible packaging and pouches used for meat, cheese, fish, baked goods, etc.

meat
cheese
fish
baked goods
other

This important barrier provides protection from oxygen and chemicals (i.e., it ensures freshness and avoids contamination) to degrees that out-perform materials such as LDPE, and it has excellent thermoformability and heat resistance properties, meaning it can be sterilized and quickly sealed. It’s strong, tough and rigid, while being extremely resistant to punctures. Moreover, polyamide complies with food-contact regulations and its advanced optical properties offer advantages in terms of product presentation.

Do more, with less

A high-performer that saves packaging material

When incorporated into advanced packaging materials, polyamide can maintain the technical qualities required of flexible packaging for food, while using less plastic thanks to downgauging. This means less waste ends up in incineration or landfills. When a layer of polyamide is ‘tied’ to a layer of LDPE, the total thickness can be a mere 70 µm—that’s a drastic reduction compared to the 150 µm of standard PE film.* A thin barrier, but with unbeatable performance. Doing more, with less.

*Source: UBE Corporation Europe

Recyclable

Using standard recycling equipment

Polyamide is an important component of advanced flexible packaging, found in quantities ranging from 10% to 30%. Recently, combined materials such as polyethylene-polyamide (PE/PA) have been presented as difficult to recycle, but this couldn’t be further from the truth: their recyclability has been certified according to a major protocol. Recycling polyolefin-polyamide blends is more than possible, it’s simple and has been practiced for decades, resulting in film with new (at times even improved) material qualities. Moreover, there is no impact on the purity of the recycled PE when PA is used in the above-mentioned quantities, thanks to the use of tie layers (which are always present in coextruded PE/PA structures) and compatibilizers. This means that already-existent recycling machinery can be used, without having to implement costly upgrades to waste management plants or divert materials into separate recycling streams.

Read more about Compatibility & Recycling

Read more about Compatibility & Recycling

white paper

Doing our part

A more sustainable food industry

Our efforts at APA are consistently targeted at one final goal: a better future for generations to come. To reach that goal, it’s important to look at the big picture, considering every aspect along the value chain when it comes to sustainability.

For that reason, we take recyclability and circularity into account, but we go one step further, examining factors such as the impact of polyamide on freshness and shelf life, thereby reducing food waste (estimated to be 25%-50% globally) or the quantity of materials needed to create a perfectly sealed package (a low package-to-product ratio, ultimately generating less material that could potentially end up in a landfill).

Resources

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Committed to a future with high-performance flexible packaging

Brussels, 10th June 2024 – BASF, UBE, ENVALIOR, DOMO Chemicals and GRUPA AZOTY ATT Polymers are proud to announce the formation of the Advanced Packaging Association (APA) AISBL as a non-profit organisation that will shape the future of the flexible packaging value chain through fact-based sustainability assessment. APA was first initiated in 2023 by key […]

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APA’s Position Paper

Currently, when it comes to the recyclability, Design for Recycling guidelines are being devised per material per packaging. We believe that, in the case of PA, these must follow the concept of material neutrality and acknowledge scientifically-sound and proven state-of-the-art materials which are compatible with the recycling of alternative materials, and that improve the environmental […]

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Mechanical recycling of LDPE films containing PA6/66 by three different, independent testing protocols

Polyethylene is one of the most widely used polymers in plenty of packaging applications, such as films, bottles, etc… However, in food packaging applications, which consists in 23% of the whole PE flexible film market, it is necessary to combine polyethylene with other materials to achieve the requirements of the product. What makes polyamide so […]

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Recyclability Certification of PE/PA

Testing Scheme at cyclos HTP Polyethylen/polyamide (PE/PA) film waste streams are already recycled since many years on larger scale. On the one side current waste sorting centers do not separate PE/PA from the PE waste streams and PE/PA is already nowadays recycled in the PE films waste stream, on the other side it is common […]

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