The lab is located at Mondi’s Frantschach site in Austria.
Frantschach has three paper machines and makes sack kraft paper, machine glazed speciality kraft paper and speciality pulp. It supplies paper and pulp to a worldwide customer base and already houses an R&D centre and Food Safety Laboratory.
Elisabeth Schwaiger, Mondi’s head of R&D and IP for flexible packaging, said the new facility would enhance the group’s value proposition for customers.
“Currently, 78% of Mondi’s group wide portfolio is already either reusable, recyclable or compostable. This recycling lab enables us to move closer to our MAP2030 goals of making 100% of our products fulfil these requirements by 2025,” she explained.
The laboratory works in a similar way to large-scale industrial recycling facilities.
It allows Mondi to test the impact of substances such as barrier coatings for food packaging on subsequent recycling steps.
Mondi said the results would provide “concrete evidence” about materials that can be recycled, and would help with improvements to existing products as well as the development of new packaging materials.
Other benefits cited included improving the circularity of material flows at the group.
Last month Mondi partnered with converter Fiorini International to produce a recyclable paper bag with a viewing window for pasta producer Antico Pastificio Umbro. The bag's viewing window is made of transparent, recyclable and biodegradable cellulose.
