Why Are Chip Bags So Hard To Recycle? | World Wide Waste | Business Insider

Summary

The script explores the environmental impact of multilayer packaging (MLP), used widely in products like potato chips, which is difficult to recycle due to its complex material composition. Anish Malpani's startup, Without, has been recycling MLPs into sunglasses since 2021. The process involves innovative technology to separate various plastics, a task that is both challenging and not widely adopted in the industry. Despite progress, the scale of recycling MLPs remains minimal compared to the vast amount produced, highlighting the need for systemic change and corporate responsibility in sustainable packaging solutions.

Takeaways

• 🍟 Humans produce over 6 million metric tons of potato chips annually, which are typically packaged in multilayered plastic bags designed to keep the chips fresh for up to six months.
• 🛍️ These sophisticated bags, made of multiple microlayers of plastics and aluminum, are difficult to recycle and often end up in landfills due to the lack of recycling technology.
• 🚀 Anish Malpani left his finance job to address the recycling problem of these multilayered packaging (MLP) materials, and his startup has recycled 300,000 chip bags into sunglasses since 2021.
• 🔍 The evolution of chip packaging from open barrels to modern MLPs has increased shelf life but created an environmental issue due to the complexity of the materials used.
• 🏭 Modern chip bags consist of up to 11 layers, with each layer serving a specific purpose such as resistance to oil, grease, and moisture, and protection from light and oxygen.
• 🌐 In 2023, the global production of MLPs was enough to fill about 4 million garbage trucks, highlighting the scale of the environmental impact.
• 🔬 Anish and his team developed a custom process and machinery to recycle MLPs, including a modified shredder and a custom-built reactor that separates the layers.
• 🔑 Dr. Jitendra Samdani helped Anish by discovering a process to isolate common plastics in MLPs, such as polypropylene, polyethylene, and PET, through a series of experiments.
• ♻️ The recycling process involves several steps including shredding, washing, drying, and a unique reaction in a reactor that dissolves aluminum and breaks down PET plastic.
• 🕶️ The recycled materials are turned into sunglasses, with each pair requiring about five packets of chips, and the company aims to expand its market beyond India.
• 🌐 The global market for multi-layer packaging is growing and projected to be worth over $250 billion by 2023, emphasizing the need for scalable and profitable recycling solutions.

Q & A

How much potato chips are produced in metric tons each year, and what is the environmental impact of their packaging?

Humans produce more than 6 million metric tons of potato chips annually. The packaging, which is typically made of multiple microlayers of plastics and aluminum, is engineered to keep snacks fresh for a long time but ends up in landfills due to its complexity, creating a significant environmental problem.

What is the significance of Anish Malpani's startup in the context of recycling chip bags?

Anish Malpani's startup has been dedicated to solving the recycling problem of chip bags since 2021, having recycled 300,000 chip bags into sunglasses, which is a significant step towards addressing the environmental issue caused by these materials.

Why are the multilayered packages (MLPs) difficult to recycle?

MLPs are difficult to recycle because they consist of multiple layers of different materials, each serving a specific purpose, and most recycling facilities lack the technology to separate or process these layers, leading to them being sent to landfills or incinerators.

What is the historical evolution of chip packaging and how has it affected the shelf life of chips?

Initially, chips were sold in open barrels and paper bags, with a shelf life of only a day. Over time, packaging evolved to include waxed paper, tin cans, and eventually multilayered packaging with materials like cellophane and aluminum foil, which significantly extended the shelf life to several weeks or even months.

What is the composition of a modern chip bag, and how does it contribute to the freshness of chips?

A modern chip bag is composed of multiple layers, with the middle layer made from plastic resistant to oil, grease, and moisture, often coated with aluminum to block oxygen and light. The outer layers are strong, flexible, and printable plastics, with the undercoat featuring graphics and the outermost layer providing protection. The bag is filled with nitrogen gas to create a low-oxygen, low-moisture atmosphere, helping chips stay fresh for up to six months.

How much multilayer packaging (MLP) was produced globally in 2023, and what is the challenge with recycling it?

In 2023, the world produced enough MLPs to fill about 4 million garbage trucks. The challenge with recycling MLPs is that most recycling facilities do not have the technology to separate or process these complex packages, resulting in them usually being sent to landfills or incinerators.

What is the process that Anish and his team developed to recycle MLPs, and what was the main challenge they faced?

Anish and his team developed a process that includes shredding, washing, drying, and using a custom-built 100-liter reactor to separate the layers at high temperatures. The main challenge was discovering the right process to isolate the common types of plastics used in MLPs, which took over 1,000 experiments and two years to figure out.

How does the recycling process at Without involve the use of a hydrocyclone, and what is its purpose?

The hydrocyclone, typically used in agriculture to separate sand and mud from water, is used in the recycling process at Without to separate lighter plastics like polypropylene and polyethylene from heavier plastics like PVC and nylon through centrifugal force.

What is the current output of Anish's R&D lab in terms of material separation, and what are his future goals for scaling up?

Anish's current R&D lab can separate about 8 kilograms of material a day. His future goal is to increase this rate to close to 100 kilograms before opening a larger plant, focusing on improving the reaction rate for efficiency.

What is the final product made from the recycled MLPs at Without, and how many chip packets does it take to make one pair of sunglasses?

The final product made from the recycled MLPs at Without is sunglasses. It is estimated that a single pair of glasses takes about five packets of chips.

What are some of the challenges and limitations in recycling multilayer packaging on a commercial scale, and why is it not widely adopted?

Challenges in recycling multilayer packaging on a commercial scale include the need for retrofitting old equipment or developing new machines to detect and separate mixed plastics, and the lack of a market for the mixed materials. Additionally, recycling them profitably is difficult due to the complexity of the process and the absence of separation, making it less viable for most recyclers.

What are some of the efforts by other companies and institutions to address the issue of MLP waste, and what are their outcomes?

Efforts include SunChips' introduction of a compostable PLA bag, which was discontinued due to customer complaints about noise; Frito-Lay's reintroduction of a compostable bag for industrial composters; and Tetra Pak's recycling program in Thailand schools, which recycles milk cartons into building materials. However, these efforts are a small fraction of the overall problem, and new technologies are needed to make recycling more efficient.

What is Anish's long-term vision for his recycling process, and what are the current limitations in achieving it?

Anish's long-term vision is to refine his process and make it work on an industrial scale, aiming for a real, systemic, and permanent change. The current limitations include the complexity of the process and the need for further development to achieve the required efficiency and scale.

Outlines

00:00

🍟 The Environmental Impact of Multilayer Packaging

The script discusses the significant environmental challenge posed by multilayer packaging used in products like potato chips. Despite being engineered to keep snacks fresh for extended periods, these materials are notoriously difficult to recycle and often end up in landfills. Anish Malpani's startup aims to address this issue by recycling chip bags into sunglasses, highlighting the complexity of recycling such packaging and the lack of action from major manufacturers. The historical evolution of packaging from simple paper bags to complex multilayer films is outlined, emphasizing the technological advancements that have inadvertently led to this environmental dilemma.

05:03

🔬 Innovations in Recycling Multilayer Packaging

This paragraph delves into the innovative process developed by Anish and his team to recycle multilayer packaging. Without a scientific background, Anish collaborated with Dr. Jitendra Samdani to create a machine that separates the complex layers of plastic in MLPs. After numerous experiments, they discovered a method using a high pH water reaction to dissolve aluminum and break down PET plastic. The process, while laborious and still in the development phase, has the potential to recycle a significant amount of material. However, the current rate of recycling is a drop in the ocean compared to the vast amount of MLPs produced globally.

10:04

🌐 The Global Challenge of Recycling Mixed Plastics

The script highlights the broader issue of recycling mixed plastics, such as those found in multilayer packaging. Most plastic recyclers are equipped to handle only one type of plastic, making the processing of mixed plastics a complex and costly endeavor. The lack of market demand for separated mixed materials and the absence of profitable recycling methods are significant barriers. The University of Wisconsin-Madison's STRAP project and Tetra Pak's recycling initiatives in Thailand are mentioned as examples of pilot projects attempting to tackle this challenge, but they represent a small fraction of the overall problem.

15:06

🛠️ The Future of Multilayer Packaging and Recycling

The final paragraph addresses the future of multilayer packaging and the efforts to make it more environmentally friendly. With the global market for MLPs projected to grow, the EU's goal of making all food wrapping recyclable or reusable by 2030 seems daunting. The script points out that even with new technologies, recycling alone may not be sufficient to solve the problem. It also touches on the challenges faced by companies that have attempted to introduce more sustainable packaging options, such as SunChips' compostable bag that was discontinued due to consumer complaints. The narrative concludes with a call for producers to take responsibility for the materials they use and the need for systemic change in the industry.

Keywords

💡Potato Chips

Potato chips are a snack food made from sliced potatoes that are fried or baked until crisp. In the context of the video, they represent a significant contributor to the production of multilayer packaging materials, which are the focus of the environmental issue discussed. The video mentions that humans produce over 6 million metric tons of potato chips annually, highlighting the scale of packaging waste generated.

💡Multilayer Packaging

Multilayer packaging refers to packaging materials made up of two or more layers of different substances, each serving a specific purpose such as protection from moisture, oxygen, or light. The video emphasizes the complexity and difficulty of recycling these materials due to their layered structure, which is integral to the environmental problem discussed.

💡Recycling

Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The video script discusses the challenges of recycling multilayer packaging due to its complex composition, which is often considered 'impossible' to recycle. The theme of recycling is central to the narrative, as it explores innovative solutions to recycle these materials.

💡Coextrusion

Coextrusion is a manufacturing process that allows for the layering of different types of plastic into a single film. This process is highlighted in the video as a key development in packaging technology that led to the creation of the multilayered packaging materials now posing a recycling challenge.

💡Anish Malpani

Anish Malpani is an individual who is portrayed in the video as having quit his finance job to address the issue of recycling multilayer packaging. His startup, Without, has recycled chip bags into sunglasses, illustrating a real-world application of recycling these difficult materials.

💡Sunglasses

In the video, sunglasses are mentioned as a product made from recycled multilayer packaging materials. This serves as an example of how recycled materials can be repurposed into new, useful products, demonstrating a potential solution to the environmental problem.

💡MLPs (Multilayer Packaging)

MLPs, or multilayer packaging, are the subject of the video's focus on environmental issues. The term is used to describe the complex packaging materials that are difficult to recycle. The video discusses the composition and structure of MLPs and the efforts to recycle them.

💡Waste Pickers

Waste pickers are individuals who sort through waste materials, often for a living. In the context of the video, waste pickers play a role in the recycling process by collecting MLPs. The video mentions SWaCH, a cooperative of waste collectors, and their involvement in the recycling initiative.

💡Custom-Built Reactor

A custom-built reactor is a piece of equipment designed specifically for a particular process or application. In the video, Anish's company uses a custom-built 100-liter reactor to separate the layers of MLPs, which is a crucial step in their recycling process.

💡Polypropylene, Polyethylene, and PET

These are types of plastics commonly used in multilayer packaging. The video discusses the challenge of separating these materials during the recycling process. Dr. Jitendra Samdani's work in the video is highlighted for figuring out how to isolate these plastics, which is key to recycling MLPs.

💡Hydrocyclone

A hydrocyclone is a device used in the video's described process to separate different materials based on their densities. It uses centrifugal force to separate lighter plastics like polypropylene and polyethylene from heavier ones, which is an essential step in the recycling process.

💡STRAP

STRAP, which stands for Solvent Targeted Recovery And Precipitation, is a method developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for processing MLPs. The video mentions this as one of the few pilot projects attempting to recycle these complex materials, indicating ongoing research and development in this field.

Highlights

Humans produce over 6 million metric tons of potato chips annually, often packaged in multilayered plastic bags designed to keep snacks fresh for extended periods.

These sophisticated bags, used in various food packaging, are almost always landfilled due to their complexity, posing a significant environmental challenge.

Anish Malpani left finance to address the recycling issue of these multilayered packaging (MLP) materials, recycling 300,000 chip bags into sunglasses since 2021.

MLPs are difficult to recycle due to their layered structure, which includes plastics and aluminum serving different purposes for preserving freshness.

The history of chip packaging evolved from simple paper bags to complex MLPs with up to 11 layers, enhancing shelf life but complicating recycling.

Modern chip bags contain a middle layer resistant to oil and moisture, often coated with aluminum, and outer layers for strength and printability.

Nitrogen gas is used in bags to create an atmosphere that extends the freshness of chips, a design prevalent in various food packaging.

The global production of MLPs in 2023 was enough to fill 4 million garbage trucks, with most ending up in landfills or incinerators due to recycling challenges.

Anish's startup, Without, has developed a process to recycle MLPs by modifying common manufacturing machines to handle the lightweight films.

Dr. Jitendra Samdani joined Anish to develop a method to separate common plastics in MLPs through a custom-built 100-liter reactor.

The recycling process involves washing, drying, and a unique reaction in a reactor to separate layers, including the dissolution of aluminum and breaking down of PET plastic.

Anish aims to increase the efficiency of his recycling lab, which currently processes about 8 kilograms of material a day, before scaling up.

The separated plastics are further refined, with some stored for future use in making bricks and others processed for use in sunglasses.

Without's process of creating sunglasses from recycled MLPs involves meticulous steps, including washing, drying, and extruding the plastic into filament.

Anish's team considered over 400 product ideas before selecting sunglasses, considering factors like team excitement and market demand.

The company currently sells the recycled sunglasses online in India and plans to expand to other countries, reflecting a commitment to environmental impact.

Most plastic recyclers are not equipped to handle mixed plastics like MLPs, which requires significant investment in new technology or retrofitting.

Efforts to create more sustainable packaging, such as biodegradable bags, have faced challenges in consumer acceptance and practical compostability.

Tetra Pak's initiative in Thailand to recycle milk cartons into building materials demonstrates a move towards more sustainable practices, albeit on a small scale.

The growing market for MLPs and the challenges in recycling them underscore the need for systemic change and corporate responsibility in material production and waste management.

Transcripts

Narrator: Humans make more than 6 million metric tons

of potato chips each year.

And most of them come in bags like this.

They're typically made of multiple microlayers of plastics

and aluminum, each serving a different purpose,

and they're engineered to keep snacks fresh and crisp

for six months or longer.

But this sophisticated design,

used in everything from yogurt pouches to juice boxes,

has created a major environmental problem,

since the material almost always ends up in landfills.

It's considered, quote, unquote, "impossible" to recycle.

Narrator: Anish Malpani quit his finance job

and dedicated his life to solving this problem.

Since 2021,

his startup has recycled 300,000 chip bags

into sunglasses.

But why are these packages so difficult to recycle?

And are big manufacturers doing anything to fix the problem?

In the early 1900s,

chips were often sold from open barrels and glass jars

and packed into paper bags,

where they stayed fresh for only a day.

Over the following decades,

companies packaged them in things like waxed

or glassine paper or tin cans to boost shelf life.

In the 1950s, manufacturers began selling their chips

in cellophane and paper bags lined with aluminum foil,

extending their shelf life by several weeks.

They offered better resistance to moisture and light,

but they didn't have an airtight seal.

In the 1970s,

a revolutionary process called coextrusion

allowed manufacturers to layer several types of plastic

into a single film,

creating the first generation of multilayered packaging.

By the 1980s,

many foods were being sold in three layers of packaging.

Today, some of these multilayer packages, or MLPs,

can have as many as 11 layers.

The middle of a modern chip bag is usually made

from plastic resistant to oil, grease, and moisture.

But this doesn't fully block oxygen or light,

so it's often coated with aluminum

to form the innermost layer.

The bag's outer layers must be strong,

flexible, and printable.

So they're made with two plastics.

The undercoat has the graphics.

The outermost layer protects them.

Before a bag is sealed, it's filled with nitrogen gas

to create a low-oxygen, low-moisture atmosphere.

Together, this design helps chips stay fresh

and crisp for six months.

And this deceptively simple-looking design is everywhere.

In 2023, the world produced enough MLPs

to fill about 4 million garbage trucks.

And most recycling facilities don't have the technology

to separate or process these packages.

So they are usually sent to landfills or incinerators.

Anish: MLP is the black sheep of the plastic family.

Nobody wants this material.

Narrator: That includes most waste pickers,

who normally can't sell this ubiquitous kind of trash.

Lubna: So finding a solution for this

where they can be compensated fairly

is of utmost importance to the waste pickers.

Narrator: Lubna Anantakrishnan works for SWaCH,

a cooperative of waste collectors

that only started gathering MLPs

after a giant manufacturer started paying for it.

Now, Anish buys 100 kilograms

of thin plastic wrapping from SWaCH every month.

Without's headquarters is just one of a handful

of places in the world that can recycle MLPs.

Because we were approaching this

from a problem-first perspective,

we chose the things that nobody wants to work on.

In the beginning, many people thought we were idiots,

like, you know, what are you doing?

This doesn't make any sense.

Narrator: Anish and his team spent a lot of time buying

and modifying common manufacturing machines

like shredders and extruders to recycle these packages.

Anish: It's not like all of them are designed by us

or all of them are off the shelf.

It's a combination.

It's like a jigsaw puzzle

where you're kind of finding this piece and making it.

Narrator: First off is a modified shredder.

It's equipped with a special vacuum

that pulls the lightweight films through so it doesn't clog.

Anish: MLP or chips packets are very light,

so it's very hard to sometimes shred them.

You need, like, extra force to suck the materials

that actually gets shredded properly.

In the first shredder, we could do only about

1 kilo an hour maybe.

Now we do 10 kilos an hour.

Narrator: Workers wash the flakes

to remove any glue or dirt.

Then they skim them

and transfer them to drying racks.

A technician weighs the dried flakes

before loading them into the company's real innovation,

a custom-built 100-liter reactor

that reaches about 250 degrees

and actually separates the layers.

It took two years to figure out the right process.

Anish doesn't have a science background,

so when he started Without, he placed an ad online,

looking for someone to help him build machines

that recycled the unrecyclable.

I was like, hey, I'm looking for a scientist

to help me tackle this.

Narrator: That's how he found Dr. Jitendra Samdani.

Jitendra's main challenge was to discover how

to separate the mix of commonly-used plastics

that make MLPs.

That's why people don't go towards the MLP recycling.

It's not a simple kind of ways.

Narrator: He tried over 1,000 experiments

until he figured out the right reaction that would isolate

three of the most common types of plastics,

polypropylene, polyethylene, and PET.

That's the moment, we say the "wow" moment, for us.

Narrator: Jitendra built the reactor to standardize

and scale his new process.

It uses water with a high pH to cause a reaction

that partially separates the layers.

The reaction dissolves the aluminum

and breaks the PET plastic

into its basic molecular structure.

And what we get is a bunch of building blocks.

Narrator: Anish's current R&D lab can separate

about 8 kilograms of material a day,

but he wants to get closer to 100 kilograms

before he opens a larger plant.

And we're still working on improving

the rate of the reaction, because we need to make sure

that we can do it in the most efficient way possible.

Narrator: The reaction leaves behind a mix of plastics,

some of which can't be used to make Without sunglasses.

Eventually, Anish wants to make bricks with them,

but for now, they're just stored on-site.

To get the needed PET plastic,

workers wash the mix with sulfuric acid.

Then they load the flakes into a barrelful of water

and connect two hoses to something called a hydrocyclone.

It's typically found in agriculture,

and it uses centrifugal force

to separate sand and mud from water.

Here, that force separates the lighter plastics,

like polypropylene and polyethylene,

from the heavier plastics, like PVC and nylon.

The material is continuously run

through both the barrel and hydrocyclone for 45 minutes

until the only thing left are the lighter plastics,

which get skimmed off the top.

The plastics are dried overnight at 60 degrees Celsius.

In the morning,

workers remove the flakes and run them through a machine

that compacts them into a more solid form.

Workers then load it into a mixing machine

and sprinkle some of the naturally green materials

with a fine, black carbon-based powder.

Anish: Our material is not transparent.

It's either green, gray, or black.

Narrator: A technician pours the flakes

into a customized twin-screw extruder that mixes, melts,

and pushes out the plastic as a filament.

Anish: We don't add any virgin plastic,

but we do add additives and compatibilizers

to give it the energy and the life that it requires.

Narrator: These additives include widely used chemicals

which improve the plastic's overall quality and durability.

The filament leaves the extruder at 200 degrees Celsius,

and it's cooled rapidly with water tanks.

Another machine cuts the filament into pellets.

Recycled plastic often starts in pellet form

before it's shaped into a final product,

and it took over two years

for Anish to figure out what his would be.

So we brainstormed over 400 different products.

We short-listed 70.

Then in the 70, we looked at 27 different parameters

based on team excitement, complexity,

average Amazon searches, and margins, and all of that.

And then sunglasses scored very highly on that.

Narrator: The pellets are melted

and injected into molds for frames and hinges.

Anish estimates that a single pair of glasses

takes about five packets of chips.

A robotic arm stamps the hinges with a logo and a QR code

so buyers know where and when their frames were made.

Workers assemble each pair

by hand-cutting plastic lenses imported from China

and screwing frames together.

Anish: So we can make between 500

to 1,000 sunglasses a month.

Narrator: All told, the company has recycled

1,500 kilograms of MLPs.

That's, like, close to 300,000 packets of chips.

It sounds big, but it's not a lot.

We're like a drop in the ocean.

Narrator: For now, Without only sells them online

in India for $10 apiece.

But Anish hopes to expand the product to the US,

Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

Anish's process is complicated,

but it only took a small team to figure it out.

So why isn't everyone doing this?

Most plastic recyclers are designed to handle one kind,

such as PET or PVC or HDPE.

Processing mixed plastics

would require retrofitting old equipment

or developing new machines

that could detect and separate them.

Because separation almost never happens,

there's no market

for the mixed materials Anish is working with.

Recycling them profitably is practically impossible.

We looked around,

and outside about a half a dozen pilot projects,

MLPs are almost never recycled at a commercial scale.

One of those projects is

at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,

where Professor George Huber and his team

spent six years developing a way to process MLPs

using solvent washes.

They call it STRAP,

short for Solvent Targeted Recovery And Precipitation.

So this is a film we made

when we pulled out the polyethylene from this,

and we went back, we made the powder, we made the pellets,

and then we went to remake the film.

Narrator: The STRAP team is building a pilot plant

that can process about 25 kilograms of MLPs an hour.

But they'll need to recycle at least 20 times that

to be profitable.

George: And then you go larger than that,

1,000 kilograms per hour,

you're looking really good.

Narrator: That kind of scale takes huge resources.

Indeed, a lot of MLP recycling is only possible

with corporate subsidies.

Remember how SWaCH started collecting MLPs?

It's because a giant food supplier

that makes them, called ITC,

sponsors the program.

Lubna: If you'd only look at the costs

of buying it from a waste picker,

aggregating and sorting it,

and then getting it to a recycler,

the value generated from MLP today

is not really enough for this to be viable.

Narrator: Other companies have also struggled

to tackle MLP waste,

partly because the packaging is so popular with consumers.

In 2010,

SunChips released a compostable chip bag made from PLA,

a biodegradable plastic sourced from cornstarch.

While it was actually compostable,

in a compost pile larger than 21 cubic feet,

customers complained about how loud it was.

The only problem?

It sounds like a hailstorm.

Narrator: SunChips' sales declined,

and the company stopped making the bags 18 months

after their release.

In 2022, Frito-Lay reintroduced a compostable bag

for its brand Off the Eaten Path.

It was quieter

but could only be broken down using an industrial composter,

not the one in your backyard.

That same year,

one of the world's biggest MLP manufacturers,

the Swiss company Tetra Pak,

started working with schools in Thailand

to recycle milk cartons into various building materials.

This school goes through about 5,000 containers a month,

and nearly all of them get recycled.

Narrator: The recycling program

is active in over 400 Bangkok schools,

as well as more than 150 drop-off points across the capital.

The cartons end up here at Eco Friendly Thai,

a recycling company that specializes

in beverage containers and used paper.

The Ratchaburi plant processes

about 12 million cartons a month.

First, they have to be broken down to make it easier

to separate the cardboard from the plastic and aluminum.

The walls of the cartons made by Tetra Pak have six layers.

All of them can be recycled on their own,

but many recycling facilities don't have machines

that can process them all at once.

About 70% of the carton is paper,

which provides structure.

Polyethylene plastic makes up 20%

and helps seal the packaging.

The last 5% is aluminum.

A thin foil helps keep the contents fresh

and extends the product's shelf life.

And a special heating process

sterilizes both the product and the package,

making some items shelf-stable for up to a year.

The hydrapulper breaks up the layers into tiny pieces.

Then the boxes go through three filters

to separate and remove the paper.

Each filter is finer than the last.

Any wastewater gets pumped back into the pulper.

Narrator: The remaining plastic and aluminum end up here,

at the dump screen.

Those will get turned into building materials,

like bricks and roofing sheets.

The pulp is trucked to another plant

and will be turned into toilet paper and cardboard.

But this is a fraction of Tetra Pak's overall output.

The company says it reclaimed

390 million containers in 2023,

just 7% of the cartons sold in Thailand alone.

While new technologies promise

to make recycling more efficient,

it's unlikely we'll be able

to recycle our way out of this problem.

The global market for multi-layer packaging is growing.

And it's overtaking other types of food packaging.

By 2023, the market is projected

to be worth more than $250 billion.

The EU wants all food wrapping

to be recyclable or reusable by 2030.

But that will be very, very hard

if facilities can't identify, sort,

and recycle multilayer packaging.

Lubna: We need the people making MLP,

the producers making MLP, to be genuinely responsible

for the material they are putting in

and realistically for the solutions for MLP

to be able to work at the scale of the problem.

Narrator: Some brands are returning

to monolayer plastic films,

like these ones made by a company called Toppan.

But they aren't perfect.

George: We don't really recycle films very well at all right now.

And so no one is really buying these monolayer materials.

Narrator: For now, Anish plans

to continue refining his process,

trying to make it work on an industrial scale.

And I'm not trying to look for a quick hack.

I'm looking for a real, systemic, permanent change.

And that takes time.

And that requires commitment.

And that's when

the real work, the real impact starts coming in.