The Quest for Quality: Scaling Advanced Mechanical Recycling to Meet Recycled Content Targets for Flexibles report set out the technical and economic blueprint for a 50,000-tonne-per-year advanced mechanical recycling facility capable of processing post-consumer household flexible plastics into high-grade recyclates.
The report argued that while the technology to recycle flexibles into demanding film applications already exists, the sector must rethink its approach if it is to meet upcoming recycled content mandates and build commercially viable infrastructure.
The alliance said the findings demonstrated that post-consumer flexibles can be transformed into recyclates suitable for incorporation rates of 30% or more in applications such as shrink films, labels and pouches, using commercially available technologies including sensor-based sorting, hot washing and double-melt filtration.
But the report warns that achieving this quality requires recyclers to move away from low-cost, high-volume “commodity” processing.
Instead, it calls for a “market-pull” model where operations are designed around the quality requirements of converters and brands.
Jacob Duer, president and CEO of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, said: “Flexible plastic packaging is one of the most challenging packaging formats to recycle at scale, but it is also one of the most important to get right.
“The technology needed to produce high-quality recyclates already exists. The challenge now is scaling these solutions commercially through stronger alignment across the value chain, supported by the policy and financial enablers needed to unlock investment.”
Mechanical flexibles recycling
The ValueFlex project, developed by the Alliance alongside CEFLEX, Roland Berger and HTP Engineering, was originally intended to deliver a commercial-scale advanced mechanical recycling plant in Europe.
Although the project was paused due to challenging macroeconomic conditions, the alliance has now published the engineering design and business case as an open-source resource for the industry.
The report estimated total capital expenditure for the facility at €106 million, with civil works accounting for 31% of costs and sorting infrastructure another 25%.
This, it said, highlighted the importance of reducing capital intensity through brownfield upgrades and upstream sorting.
Rather than building new greenfield facilities, the report suggested recyclers could accelerate deployment by retrofitting existing sites with hot washing, advanced extrusion and deodorisation technology.
It also pointed to centralised plastics recovery facilities (PRFs) as a critical piece of infrastructure, allowing recyclers to receive cleaner, pre-sorted feedstock and avoid the yield losses associated with processing raw household bales.
The report also positioned chemical recycling as complementary to advanced mechanical recycling, rather than a competing pathway.
While advanced mechanical recycling is seen as the most immediate route to scale, particularly for mono-material PE and PP films, chemical recycling is expected to play a longer-term role in processing multi-material laminates and food-contact applications.
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