ChemFORWARD Shares Safe + Circular Packaging Materials Pilot Results

The Safe + Circular Materials Collaborative, a partnership between ChemFORWARD and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, explored the challenges of safe and circular packaging materials and identified strategies to accelerate the transition to safer alternatives. This Collaborative was unique in that it ran concurrent to a pilot project in which members were invited to participate.

A key insight of this work was that while regulations and restricted substances lists (RSLs) indicate what not to use, the next question is: what to use instead? Without robust, high-quality data, this question cannot be answered and everyone in the value chain is vulnerable to regrettable substitutions.

With generous support from Google, Passport Foundation, and Primat Foundation, ChemFORWARD has completed a two-year pilot project to identify, assess, verify, and publish packaging materials that contribute to safe and circular packaging solutions.

Guided by research and prioritized by member input, the Collaborative was focused on compostable and recyclable packaging, targeting the most hazardous chemicals, pathways of highest concern, and areas with the greatest potential to contribute to circularity.

The Collaborative established priority functional areas and agreed on criteria for high-impact safer alternatives. The priority functional areas included :

• Plastic additives to maximize the potential mechanical recycling while maintaining high-quality feedstock properties; and

• PFAS-free paper and pulp additives to ensure safe compostable and recycling feedstocks.

Adhesives and inks were identified as priorities for both paper and plastic applications but were not addressed in this pilot. Adhesives and inks represent an opportunity for optimization using the infrastructure and tools developed in the pilot.

ChemFORWARD is pleased to share the results of the packaging pilot that began in April 2021.

The goals of the Packaging Pilot included:

• Eliminate hazardous chemicals in packaging, going beyond outdated regulations;

• Increase awareness of the need to design with safer chemistry for circularity; and

• Identify and verify safer alternatives using a rigorous third-party process.

Outputs included:

• 48+ new chemical hazard assessments for common chemicals used as paper/pulp additives and plastic additives which now reside in the shared chemical hazard repository and are available for use by others.

• Over 1100 plastic additives including hundreds of safer alternatives organized by function now freely available through the ChemFORWARD Plastic Additives Optimization Tool.

• 17 packaging materials from 5 companies achieved the ChemFORWARD SAFER™ designation. These are freely available through the ChemFORWARD SAFER Trade Name Registry and include:

  • Zaclon’s Quilon. PFAS-free alternative used in food applications for paper with release properties such as bakery pan liners, glassine paper, mold lining paper, candy wrappers, and masking tape.

  • Dow plasticizers. Includes common polymeric plasticizers Palamoll® 652, 654, and 656 as well as the important alternative non-ortho-phthalate plasticizers Hexamoll® DINCH and Palatinol® DOTP.

  • TotalEnergies Corbion Luminy® PLA. A range of specially developed high-performance PLA polymer resins that are iobased, compostable, and made from renewable resources.

  • World Centric Leaf+™. Plant-based compostable solution for high temperature grease and oil resistance in paper and pulp applications that do not contain PFAS.

  • Ahlstrom Cristal® Transparent Packaging papers. Alternatives to non-renewable materials, from replacing a plastic or film in a package to creating a fully fiber-based end-use structure. BPI certified.

  • Ahlstrom FluoroFree® papers. Outstanding grease resistance without the use of fluorochemicals for quick Service Restaurant applications, microwave popcorn bags and other papers.

    NSF International served as the third-party assessor for this pilot project.

As a result of this work, Sustainable Packaging Coalition and ChemFORWARD will launch CleanPackage at the Impact conference in Austin, TX on April 26, 2023. This registry of trade name materials will allow manufacturers and converters to find materials that have been verified through ChemFORWARD’s SAFER program and other credible programs (GreenScreen Gold, C2C MHC Gold) and help suppliers demonstrate human and environmental safety while building customer trust based on a rigorous, third-party process.

ChemFORWARD would like to thank all who contributed to the success of this pilot and the resulting trust it will bring to the process of disclosure and third-party verification.

Visit here to learn more about our SAFER Program.