Each year, the world produces roughly 100 million tons of flexible multilayer plastic packaging — materials that keep food fresh and pharmaceuticals safe from moisture and oxygen. Yet most of these plastics are nearly impossible to recycle due to their complex, chemically incompatible layers. Michigan State University scientists have developed a new kind of plastic film that could change that.

Working with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, researchers from MSU’s School of Packaging and College of Engineering have created a strong, lightweight plastic that keeps products fresh while being easier to recycle or even biodegrade. The work, published in the Chemical Engineering Journal, was supported by a $1.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, or DOE.

“One of the plastics industry’s biggest challenges is making previously unrecyclable plastics recyclable,” said Muhammad Rabnawaz, MSU professor of packaging, Faculty Laureate, and director of the National Science Foundation’s Center for Plastic, Paper and Hybrid Packaging End-of-Life Solutions, or C3PS. “Our goal was to create high-performance packaging that’s also sustainable. These are high-performance materials that happen to be recyclable.”