Flexible films and multilayer pouches now dominate packaging formats, yet recycling rates remain stuck in the single digits. In this Packaging Recycling Insights segment, industry leaders examine what it will take to scale recovery of hard-to-recycle flexible materials amid growing EPR pressure and brand commitments. Drawing from Packaging Recycling Summit sessions and interviews, we will explore how validated store drop-off networks, collaborative data and verification models, smart label traceability, and evolving recycling pathways are beginning to convert flexible waste streams into quality feedstock.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the key system barriers to flexible packaging recovery, including collection access, contamination, material complexity, and end-market economics.
• Explain how collaboration across brands, recyclers, alliances, and research institutions is accelerating scalable recovery solutions.
• Evaluate the role of design-for-recyclability, particularly mono-material PE and PP structures, in improving sortation and processing outcomes.
• Compare current and emerging recovery pathways—including store drop-off, curbside pilots, mechanical recycling, and advanced recycling—for flexible materials.
• Recognize how EPR frameworks and brand-led funding models are influencing infrastructure investment and market certainty.

*If you’re interested but not able to attend the live broadcast, register anyway and we’ll send you a link to the recording and presentation slides once they’re available.