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Designed for Molecular Recycling: A Lignin-Derived Semi-aromatic Biobased Polymer

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Advancing Circularity in Multilayer Film Recycling: Balancing Quality and Sustainability.

Milad Golkaram¹, Rajesh Mehta¹, Sami Zakarya²

¹Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), Princetonlaan 8, 3584 CB Utrecht, The Netherlands.

|November 13, 2025

Summary

Recycling multilayer films (MLFs) is complex. Advanced methods improve recyclate quality, but higher recycled content targets are needed to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance sustainability.

Keywords:

life cycle assessment plastic recycling

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Area of Science:

Materials Science
Environmental Science
Chemical Engineering

Background:

Multilayer films (MLFs) recycling faces significant hurdles in achieving circular economy goals.
Existing recycling methods like mechanical, solvolysis, and dissolution have limitations.
Improving the quality of MLF recyclates is crucial for their broader application.

Purpose of the Study:

To evaluate advanced pilot-scale processes for enhancing MLF recyclate quality.
To assess the environmental impact, specifically greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, of different MLF recycling routes and recycled content levels.
To challenge current recycled content targets and propose more ambitious goals for sustainability.

Main Methods:

Implementation of advanced pilot-scale processes including Near Infrared/Digital Watermarking (NIR/DW), super-critical CO2 decontamination, dissolution, and innovative mechanical recycling techniques (METEOR and multi-nano layering, MNL).
Evaluation of two recycling routes: dissolution-based and METEOR/MNL-based.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) focusing on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for various MLF compositions and recycled content percentages.

Main Results:

Advanced recycling processes improve the quality of MLF recyclates.
Recycling PET/PE and metalized PP films with 10% recycled content may increase GHG emissions compared to landfill incineration.
PE/PA and PE/EVOH films show GHG reductions of 0.5% and 4% respectively at 10% recycled content.
Increasing recycled content from 0% to 50% can reduce GHG emissions by 36%.

Conclusions:

The quality of MLF recyclates can be enhanced through advanced recycling technologies.
Current low recycled content targets (e.g., 10%) may not yield significant environmental benefits and can even increase GHG emissions for certain MLF types.
A more ambitious target of exceeding 25% recycled content by 2050 is recommended to achieve substantial GHG reductions and improve the sustainability of MLF recycling.