How to Make a Recyclable Laundry Bag

A discarded mineral water bottle is obviously easier to enter the recycling system than a plastic bag of laundry detergent and potato chips. In Longdapac’s view, plastic products made of single materials such as mineral water bottles have clear recycling links, high utilization rates, and low reprocessing costs, making them popular in the market. However, plastic products in flexible packaging such as laundry detergent and potato chips are often made by bonding multiple layers of plastic and glue, making recycling difficult.

Why is it so difficult to recycle flexible packaging? Longdapac introduced that taking laundry detergent packaging as an example, generally speaking, laundry detergent packaging bags look like a thin and smooth plastic bag, but even traditional laundry detergent packaging bags require three layers of plastic and two layers of glue to complete the structure. Among these three layers of plastic, there should be at least two or more materials used, the most traditional of which may be PET, with some polyethylene in the middle. Generally, two layers of glue are needed to composite the three layers of materials together. “However, in reality, PET and polyethylene are completely incompatible, making it difficult to recycle such products. According to current widespread applications, these materials are still necessary to produce this bag. When laundry detergent is used up, plastic bags cannot be recycled, and may eventually be incinerated in the form of dry waste,” said Longdapac. “On the other hand, in current plastic packaging, there is currently no good solution in the market to effectively classify different materials and then recycle these materials.” Longdapac said, “If it is a single material plastic product, we can see its value behind it. However, for laminated products with multiple materials, some materials can be recycled and some cannot be recycled. How to separate these materials is not yet feasible, or there are enough profit points for enterprises to participate in it.”

Longdapac team have also been hoping to make breakthroughs in this field – allowing complex multi-layer materials to be fully recycled through technological transformation without changing their uses. “In recent years, we have been making bags with only two layers of material, which is to transform traditional three-layer materials into only two layers. Although it is a two-layer material, through different processing techniques, its chemical composition is mono-material PE, which can achieve complete recycling.” Longdapac said. The first financial reporter saw that among the products that the company has already launched, this two-layer polyethylene packaging bag is labeled with the word “RECYCLE”, which also means that the bag can be thrown into a “recyclable” trash can for recycling after use

At the same time, Longdapac has launched a groundbreaking vacuum aluminum coated polyethylene solution, whose ultra-high barrier performance ensures the shelf life of packaged food while meeting recyclability requirements. It can be seen that advanced technologies in the industry are constantly being developed and applied, but in reality, the penetration rate is average. To achieve a wider range of applications, it still needs to be accumulated and tested for a long time, and the high cost cannot be ignored. Regarding this issue, Wu Chang believes that it is like a competition between the student group and the adult group. All plastic products on the market belong to the adult group, which has undergone countless growth and transformation, reaching its current scale. And with the introduction of new technologies and products, although advanced in technology, they are still elementary school students. If we want to achieve the results (market share) of the adult group, we also need sufficient attention and training, and have enough soil for their growth. “At present, the application cost is indeed high. However, the cost is definitely related to the volume. When it is accepted by more people and has enough volume, more people will be willing to invest in such products, and the cost issue is no longer a problem.”

With the improvement of global waste plastic recycling technology and the increase of production capacity, it is expected that the global waste plastic recycling rate is expected to reach 50% by 2030, with physical recycling accounting for 22%, almost doubling, and chemical recycling accounting for 17%, indicating huge growth potential. In the face of urgent environmental protection needs, solving the problem of plastic recycling can be approached from four aspects: firstly, policies and regulations require very systematic guiding principles. Secondly, it is necessary to rebuild the industrial chain. Again, it requires the efforts of the entire society. Finally, in terms of technological research and development, innovative research and development are also needed to find more economical and scientific ways of recycling and reuse. On the one hand, from an industry perspective, it is necessary to further research and promote more environmentally friendly and economical recycling technologies and processes; On the other hand, the government also needs to provide institutional guarantees for industrial upgrading, especially by taking measures to encourage and support the research and promotion of new technologies and processes