Interview with Yanir Aharonson, CEO at Flexible Packaging Company: Polysack

Polysack is a green-tech company and a world leader in plastic flexible packaging film product manufacturing for a variety of applications, including films for flexible packages, high-shrink labels, candy wrappers, and more.

The company provides its line of eco-friendly films to converters and other third parties who apply them within multiple industries such as beverages, food, confectionery, agriculture and others. Polysack’s users range from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies.
 
 

 

What makes Polysack’s plastic eco-friendly?

 
The flexible films Polysack produces are based completely on Mono Oriented polyethylene (MOPE). PE is the most commonly used polymer in the world and can be recycled almost anywhere. Thus, Polysack provides a sustainable alternative to flexible packaging. Today, most flexible packaging are not recycled and often goes into a landfill or burned for energy production.

Polysack’s MOPE films are made by a unique mono orientation process: a series of stages are implemented on the film and stretched in a machine direction. The stages include: preheating, orienting, annealing, and cooling. Machine direction orientation (MDO) of PE films improves numerous properties, including stiffness, strength, barrier, and optics.

Polysack recently teamed up with Flessofab, an Italian packaging manufacturer, to launch a series of eco-friendly, stand-up pouch packaging (Pack’N’Cycle). The Pack’N’Cycle family of films is made of Mono Oriented PE (MOPE) and has enhanced properties compared to traditional PE films. Pack’N’Cycle successfully replaces traditional biaxially-oriented polyethylene terephthalate (BOPET) or biaxially-oriented polypropylene (BOPP), thus producing a package made of mono-material that can be fully recycled.
 

How has the company evolved during the pandemic?

 
During the COVID-19 pandemic, household consumption of food products grew exponentially and as a result the demand for packaging. Plus, many products used to be sold bare, but in hopes of curbing the virus, companies soon began placing these products in new, often plastic, packaging. The consumption growth increased the amount of plastic waste produced and highlighted the need for more sustainable packaging solutions.

Polysack saw an increased demand for packaging film solutions. The production capabilities have reached full capacity and the company has seen a lot of growth in this market segment. Polysack now has begun multiple development projects with leading companies. Brands see the importance of adopting Polysack’s innovative approach to sustainable packaging design. Now, Polysack has more innovative products and solutions which will be released in the near future.
 

What can we hope to see from Polysack in the future?

 
Polysack is in the advanced stages of developing flexible films with improved thermal resistance. These have, so far, been made possible only by a combination of different polymers types within the film structure—which can not be recycled together.

Polysack managed to achieve this by using unique knowledge in raw materials along with incorporating them into the mono oriented stretching process. These films will allow more comfortable working conditions during the final stage of packaging as well as increase the outputs of the production. This also has a positive environmental impact by lowering energy costs and improving efficiency.

Another product Polysack is working on is the development of a film with high barrier properties for oxygen and water vapor transmotion. This film will extend the shelf life of the food product inside the package. This is done without compromising the package’s recycling capabilities and makes sure that despite the significant improvement in its barrier properties—the film will still be able to be recycled in the regular PE stream.