Barrier Paper: The Solution to Recyclable Food Packaging for the Existing Circular Infrastructure

Presented by Alex Shashoua, Celplast Metallized Products

Oxygen and moisture barrier are essential aspects of modern food packaging, allowing for the extended shelf lives that support the global food industry. However, conventional high-barrier packaging solutions, such as foil or multi-material film laminates, are not suited to a circular economy. Tremendous efforts have been focused on adding barrier properties to recyclable and compostable plastic films, but such solutions are inevitably limited by under-developed infrastructure, which blocks large-scale circularity. Paper recycling is an existing circular economy with a globally robust infrastructure, so a barrier paper solution that is recyclable in this stream would be the first food packaging solution that is truly circular at scale. This study explores the development of barrier papers fabricated via vacuum metallization and flexographic coating and the future of all-fiber packaging solutions.