Designing for recyclability
Tyvek® facilitates sustainable packaging designs
Recyclability of healthcare packaging is an increasingly important topic for the industry as it seeks to achieve sustainable solutions and a circular economy. Recyclability requires not only the compositional quality of packaging materials to enable recycling, but also an infrastructure for collecting and sorting materials into existing waste streams and then converting them into new products.
Microscopic view of Tyvek® at 500X magnification.
DuPont™ Tyvek® is made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE), making it compatible with existing (mechanical) and emerging (advanced) recycling techniques. Tyvek® is certified 100% recyclable. In addition, due to its unique combination of properties, Tyvek® facilitates adoption of packaging designs—such as mono-material structures—that meet the sustainable design guidelines established by a variety of industry organizations, such as the Healthcare Plastics Recycling Council (HPRC), CEFLEX and RecyClass.
These sustainable design guidelines include:
• Designing with mono-material whenever possible
• Minimizing paper labels and components
• Not combining plastic film with paper in packaging