Packaging, besides the requirements of protecting the contents, facilitating the products transportation and communicating the right information, must also lower its environmental impact by closing the loop on resources.

Flexible packaging for coffee application is commonly a multilayer with a barrier to oxygen and water vapour. The packaging must satisfy various requirements other than sustainability and recyclability. The complexity of the structure makes the recyclability more difficult compared to monolayer flexible packaging for other applications.

However, flexible packaging shows some advantages over rigid, especially in terms of material usage and carbon footprint, which make it a very attractive solution from the point of view of circularity.
Generally, recycling flexible packaging presents some challenges compared to rigid packaging materials because of its complex composition; however, advancements in recycling technologies and the development of specialized recycling streams have made it increasingly feasible to recycle flexible packaging.

After the collection, the flexible packaging materials undergo sorting – which can be manual, automated, or a combination of both – to separate the different types of packaging (rigid, flexible) and materials (PET, PP, PE, etc.) and to remove contaminants.
Once sorted, the materials are processed through cleaning, shredding, and melting and then used to manufacture new products or materials, this could involve extrusion to create new film or injection moulding to produce other plastic products.

Eco-design should focus on enhancing the material circularity by reducing the amount of packaging materials used and increasing their performances with the aim of valorizing the end of life through reusing, recycling and composting.
In order to achieve a recyclability at scale it is recommended to minimize the area of ​​the packaging affected by treatments that interfere with recycling (e.g., inks, adhesives, coatings and barriers). Beside the quantity of the main packaging components, the focus should be moved on the compatibility with the main material in order to obtain the highest quality as possible on the secondary raw material.
It is recommended to giving priority, whenever it is possible, to materials derived from renewable sources if they are not in competition with the food supply chain and to prefer mono-material packaging or to minimize the components of different materials, by giving priority to materials that are easily recyclable with the most common technologies (chemical and mechanical recycling) and more widespread in the markets of interest.
Among the main guidelines that help packaging manufacturers in producing recycling-friendly solutions, we can mention:

• CEFLEX (EU)
• RECYCLASS (EU)
• APR (US)
• APCO (AUS)
• COTREP (FR)
• CONAI (IT)
• OPRL (UK)