Circular stretch wrap

The road to circular pallet packaging

One of the most widely used materials for packaging pallets is stretch film. In Belgium, no less than 35,000 tonnes are marketed. Up to now, this film has been manufactured entirely from new material. In order to switch over to a more circular economy, it is absolutely essential in this sector too to invest more in the use of recycled material.

That is why Valipac started a demonstration project to show that it is possible to produce stretch films from recycled pallet foils. In this way, we want to set up a profitable, local recycling industry and turn waste into high-quality end products again.

This project is the logical follow-up to a previously completed project on the circular shrink sleeve. However, we are setting the bar even higher here, as stretch film is approximately seven times thinner than a standard shrink sleeve. Moreover, the production process of stretch film is technically more complex.

Thanks to excellent cooperation with our partners, we have succeeded in developing a circular stretch film, something that was initially considered impossible. Moreover, a life cycle analysis (LCA) has shown that the circular stretch film scores considerably better ecologically.