PT Tech Days returns this Wednesday with a new single-day format featuring three expert-led presentations and a 30-minute Q&A panel designed to provide a robust, accessible platform through which plastics professionals can explore topics of note. The first Tech Days topic of 2026 explores Sustainable Packaging.
Rigid and flexible packaging is under increasing scrutiny to lessen its environmental footprint on the basis of pressure from consumers, regulators and brand owners. This Tech Days session will examine the latest technologies and provide valuable insights into topics like closed loops for cradle-to-cradle products, design strategies to incorporate more recycled or biobased content and more.
Your ticket includes access to a full recording after the event airs live.
Design for Reality: Bridging the Gap Between Polymer Science and Recycling Infrastructure
Polymer science has spent decades solving the problem of protection. By combining different materials, such as multilayer coextrusions and laminates, we have engineered packaging that keeps food fresh and products safe in ways that no single material could achieve alone. However, the same molecular differences that make these structures perform so well on the shelf often make them incompatible in the recycling melt.
Here, we will explore the friction between high-performance material design and the realities of recycling infrastructure. As the industry faces new regulatory pressures to prove recyclability at scale, we must rethink how we assemble these complex systems. The discussion will offer insights into how we can move "Design for End of Life" from an afterthought to a primary design constraint. We will look at how choices in adhesives, barriers, and coatings made at the material selection level can ultimately determine whether a package is recovered or rejected. This session invites attendees to consider how we can maintain essential performance while engineering materials that work with the recovery loop, rather than against it.
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