Eco-Friendly Revolution: Recyclable Mono-material Drink Pouches – Capri-Sun success story

Capri Sun’s state-of-the-art pouches for fruit juice use 3-layer laminates (PET/Aluminum/PE) that are practically impermeable to water vapor and oxygen and therefore highly protective for the fruit juice (storage shelf life > 1 year). However, the materials are not recyclable because of the use of 3 different materials. Within FlexFunction2Sustain, the objective was to replace the drink pouches with fully recyclable monomaterial laminates in which the gas barrier performance is provided by thin film functionalisation.  The main goal of the recyclability studies was to verify that the new mono-material structure could be sorted and recycled without disturbing other streams and degrading the quality of recycled material.

Several tests were carried out in the frame of the Capri-Sun Use Case, allowing to follow different steps of PP films recycling: post-industrial recycling, post-consumer recycling, and optical sorting. The new fully recyclable pouch was launched in 2023 in the first test market. This was followed by the 330ml larger, fully recyclable pouch, which is now available throughout Europe.

Capri-Sun plans to gradually switch to the new pouch in all markets starting in 2025.

“Being more sustainable as a brand is a crucial goal for Capri-Sun. Our focus has now been on the iconic pouch. Historically, it was made from a multi-material structure, which is difficult to recycle. Therefore, we developed mono-material pouch to ensure it is fully recyclable. The development of a new material, along with all the recycling tests, is incredibly complex and time-consuming, requiring collaboration to succeed.

We were thrilled to have the opportunity to be part of the FlexFunction2Sustain project. This allowed us to collaborate with other companies, like Frauenhofer IVV, IPC and Coatema and benefit from their expertise. We collaborated with the Fraunhofer IVV to assess the desired properties of the new packaging material. To validate the recyclability of the material, we received valuable assistance from the IPC Institute and the Fraunhofer IVV. This also helped us to further optimize the pouch to favour the recycling process.

We are proud to say that we managed to launch the recyclable mono-material pouch within this project.” say Beatus Schehl, Research & Development Director and Jakub Pedzinski, Senior Packaging Innovation Manager at Capri-Sun.

Read the full story HERE.

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