Country: Japan

Category: Household

Our company, in collaboration with Toyo Ink Co., Ltd., has developed a refill pouch that not only functions effectively as a container but also excels in recyclability by enabling material separation. This breakthrough allows for the selective recovery of individual materials from laminated films and achieve container-to-container recycling as high-quality recycled resin, thereby contributing to the circular use of plastics.
Standing pouches used in refill containers are typically composed of multilayer films made from different materials such as polyethylene, nylon, and PET to ensure the required performance. However, because these films are strongly bonded together—often using adhesives—the separation process is difficult, which has hindered high-quality material recycling. Therefore, through the optimization of debondable adhesives and the establishment of mass production technology for pouches utilizing these adhesives, we have realized the development of easily recyclable pouches that allows laminated films to be separated in a mild alkaline aqueous solution.

Technological Features
1. Balancing Debondability and In-use Adhesion:
On one hand, debondability is required to allow the film to be easily separated for pouch recycling, while on the other hand, sufficient adhesion strength is necessary to protect the contents until the consumer uses the product, making it essential to achieve two seemingly contradictory functions. We achieved separation of the layers in this challenge by reconstructing the adhesive composition, enabling treatment with a mild alkaline solution.
2. Securing High-Quality Recycled Material:
The developed technology enables the separation of the target material, polyethylene, from other dissimilar substances and allows for the removal of ink by combining it with an ink remover, resulting in its recovery as a high-purity, single material. This technology can also be applied to mono-material packaging with interior printing, thereby contributing to the recovery of even higher-quality recycled materials.
3. Expandability of the Layered Film Debonding Technology:
Our debondable adhesive has been confirmed to have versatility for food applications beyond just detergents. Furthermore, this adhesive is compatible with existing pouch manufacturing equipment and does not require significant modifications to production lines. By disclosing and widely disseminating this technology, it can contribute to the recycling of flexible packaging.

Conclusion:
Through the collaborative development with Toyo Ink Co., Ltd., our company has successfully created an innovative debondable adhesive and launched a refill pouch product that excels in recyclability. This adhesive not only enables the easy separation of composite films but also removes ink from the printed inner surface of laminated films, ensuring the recovery of high-quality polyethylene film for recycling. We are confident that this breakthrough will greatly contribute to the promotion of recycled materials in flexible packaging and support sustainable packaging solutions throughout the industry.