Inside India's shift to mono-material flexible packaging
Brand owners are racing to hit 2027 recyclability targets — here's what's actually changing on the production line.
Brand owners are racing to hit 2027 recyclability targets — here's what's actually changing on the production line.
India's flexible packaging industry is at an inflection point. With Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) norms tightening and brand owners publicly committing to 2027 recyclability targets, converters are under real pressure to move away from multi-layer laminates and toward mono-material structures that can actually be recycled at scale.
The shift isn't just a materials swap. Mono-material PE and PP films behave differently on existing lamination and pouching lines — seal strength, barrier performance, and print adhesion all need re-qualification, and that's before a single new machine is purchased.
Machine builders are responding with retrofit kits for existing pouching lines rather than requiring full replacement — a meaningful cost difference for mid-size converters who can't justify a new capital line for a single SKU family.
For procurement teams evaluating new filling or pouching equipment this cycle, mono-material compatibility is quickly becoming a baseline requirement rather than a nice-to-have.