Editor’s note: This “Milestones” feature is part of an occasional series by FlexPack VOICE® to highlight companies celebrating an anniversary of their founding in five-year increments.
Each year, FlexPack VOICE® checks in with some of the longest-serving members of the Flexible Packaging Association (FPA) to ask about the state of the industry and how they are navigating current issues.
In 2024, Dow has been with FPA for 55 years of FPA’s nearly 75-year history. Amanda Ciccone, senior director of sales at Dow, agreed to answer some questions, with some of her insights found in the November/December 2024 edition of FlexPack VOICE®. The cover article titled “Lessons From 2024 Inform 2025: Industry Leaders Discuss Trends Facing Flexible Packaging Industry” includes insights from other industry leaders, as well. In that article, for example, Ciccone mentions how Dow designs products with the end of life in mind. This article includes more information provided by Ciccone, who is an FPA board member.
FlexPack VOICE®: Talk a bit more about your sustainability efforts as they pertain to flexible packaging.
Amanda Ciccone: In service of our sustainability goals in packaging, Dow has also recently formed a new business platform, Circular and Renewable Solutions, aligned within the packaging and specialty plastics operating segment, to support the full-scale commercialization of our circularity and carbon strategy.
As part of our efforts, we’re focusing on designing for recyclability to help deliver for our customers and brand owners. Dow recently announced two technology additions at our innovative Pack Studios in Freeport, Texas, to further its commitment to helping accelerate the development of circular packaging options. The additions include an MDO (machine direction orientation) unit to its nine-layer blown film line for food and specialty packaging, and an upgraded cast film line designed to support industrial and commercial packaging customers. The addition of the MDO extension to the nine-layer blown film line enhances Dow’s comprehensive suite of technologies for blown film applications to accelerate mono-material packaging development. With these expanded capabilities, Dow is positioned to help customers keep circular and renewable packaging options at the forefront of the design process.
In addition, Dow is proud of our work with Hefty in flexible packaging. The Hefty ReNew™ program is a Dow and Reynolds Consumer Products initiative designed to divert hard-to-recycle plastics like plastic bags and flexible plastic packaging from landfills for conversion into fuel and other products. To date, the program has allowed more than 1.5 million households nationwide to divert more than 5 million pounds of hard-to-recycle plastics from landfills.
Overall, Dow supports the broader efforts happening across the value chain, like The Recycling Partnership’s Film and Flexibles Taskforce and PLASTICS Industry Association’s Flexible Film Recycling Alliance to create more cross-industry collaboration on sustainable flexible packaging.
FPV: What do you think should be the U.S. government’s role in a circular economy? For example, some people have talked about advanced recycling or chemical recycling being important to handling flexible packaging. However, the investment in infrastructure will be heavy and might require some guidance from federal officials, in particular. Thoughts?
AC: Dow wants to create a circular economy for our materials and believes supporting policies are critical for this transition to happen across systems, globally. The government has a role to play in encouraging innovative pathways that can help shift us to a circular economy from a linear one.
Other policies could help increase clarity and transparency. For example, the current recycling infrastructure is a highly localized system, but a harmonized approach, like policies to standardize and increase transparency, can further empower consumers while also highlighting challenges in our current system such as confusion about recycling.
When it comes to the design of packaging, some states in the U.S. have already adopted extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws, which can provide an opportunity to further unlock the economic and environmental benefits of recycling. EPR strategies not only incentivize the production and use of recyclable content, but they also increase recycling rates and access and recapture the lost economic value of materials sitting in landfills. Establishing fair, well-designed EPR or similar policies at the local or national level are necessary to ensure that waste management systems function appropriately and are economically self-sustaining. This is a necessary piece of the puzzle to support the circularity of plastics.
Finally, complementary investment in and support of advanced and mechanical recycling will be a critical component to both being able to recycle more material and producing high-quality recyclate that can be used in applications like flexible food packaging.
FPV: Anything that we didn’t ask that we should have asked?
AC: We’d also like to take a moment to touch on the role of collaboration in our sustainable packaging efforts. Dow is building the foundation for a fully circular, lower-carbon future by collaborating with key stakeholders, expanding the boundaries of our core business, and establishing the technology needed to realize a more sustainable future.
With more than 50 circularity projects and partnerships in the works today, including those with Mura Technologies, New Energy Blue, and WM, Dow is working with like-minded partners to develop more recyclable packaging structures, invest in recycling technologies, and ensure more used plastics are being recycled into high-quality new products that contain more recycled or bio-circular content.
We’re proud of some recent collaborations announced across North America over the past few years:
- Freepoint: Dow recently announced a supply agreement to offtake pyrolysis from Freepoint. Utilizing the circular liquid supply, Dow will produce new products with virgin-grade equivalent plastics, replacing those made from conventional feedstock. The resulting circular products will be suitable for use in various applications including food-grade packaging (such as pet food, confectionery, and snacks) as well as medical and pharmaceutical packaging while maintaining existing product performance and reducing reliance on fossil feedstocks.
- New Energy Blue: Dow and New Energy Blue announced a long-term supply agreement in North America in which New Energy Blue will create bio-based ethylene from renewable agricultural residues. Dow expects to purchase this bio-based ethylene, reducing carbon emissions from plastic production and using it in recyclable applications across transportation, footwear, and packaging.
- Circulus: Dow recently acquired mechanical recycler Circulus. Dow’s experience in materials science and high-performance resins combined with Circulus’ mechanical film recycling capability will allow Dow to enhance its offerings in applications, including collation shrink packaging, stretch film, liners, and select food packaging, to a wider range of applications in the industrial, consumer, and transportation markets.
Thomas A. Barstow is senior editor of FlexPack VOICE®.