Packaging design trends in 2022 will be bold, beautiful and sustainable

Combatting climate change and achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are at the heart of the sustainability megatrend that is front and center across all aspects of our modern society.

Sustainable packaging for a greener future

This is no more so than in packaging where consumers are increasingly making choices for greener products and coalitions such as the U.S. Plastics Pact are working to eliminate 11 problematic and unnecessary resins, components, and formats by 2025 in order to accelerate progress toward a circular economy for plastic packaging in the United States. Milliken is supporting these efforts for greater recycling and a circular plastics economy with sustainable technological innovations that enhance the performance of plastics.

We have partnered with PureCycle Technologies to restore used polypropylene (PP) plastic to ‘virgin like’ quality with a revolutionary recycling method. Milliken’s additives, such as Millad® NX® 8000 ECO, will play a critical role by enabling the recycled material to become clearly circular.

This leading-edge work also aligns with solutions like our Hyperform® HPN® performance additives that help to create stronger, lighter PP parts by improving stiffness while retaining the same impact behavior as a non-nucleated resin. UL Environment & Sustainability, a unit of the global UL group, has certified several grades for their ability to deliver energy savings when used for thin-wall container lids or similar PP products.

Packaging with an eye on safety

Sustainability and safety are often linked and if there’s anything that consumers are looking for after the past two years it’s packaging that delivers on both. The novel coronavirus has brought convenience and hygiene back into the spotlight.

Hyperform HPN 909ei, for polypropylene homopolymers in thermoforming applications, has improved aesthetics with final parts that are cleaner, clearer and more transparent. This allows PP, an easy to recycle plastic, to replace other materials in some applications, helping to meet targets such as the EU’s 50% 2025 recycling target for plastic packaging.

Hyperform HPN 909ei is a high-performance additive for PP food contact materials, including packaging. It is a new generation product that has one Specific Migration Limit (SML) less than the predecessor, meaning there is one less substance that must be monitored and that the safety profile of the final package is improved.

Design for the digital 20s

Digital commerce has boomed recently and with technology continually advancing, its growth shows no signs of slowing. One hot trend in modern design is interactive packaging that offers consumers access to special deals, exclusive content and other interactive experiences. Interactive packaging also has wider potential uses for sustainability.

By example, Milliken is actively supporting the cutting-edge HolyGrail 2.0 project, a large-scale initiative piloting digital watermarking technologies for the accurate sorting of packaging at scale. The interactive digital watermark is a printed barcode that is imperceptible to the human eye but detectable with a camera for standard plastic sorting installations.

Digital watermarks have a huge potential in different stages of the packaging journey, from manufacturing and consumer engagement to sorting and recycling. They essentially add a ‘digital recycling passport’ that can explain details such as how and where the packaging was made, or, for example, whether it was food or non-food packaging. This technology means that waste management systems can sort waste more efficiently, leading to better waste streams and far more recycling.

Functionality and flexibility

Flexible packaging has always been about a revolution in material and functional design, helping manufacturers to ‘think outside of the box’ and it’s about much more than new shapes and sizes. Flexible packaging design involves the complicated task of combining several layers to achieve the right balance of properties required to protect a package’s contents. Historically, several different materials (nylon, PET, PP, PE, aluminum, EVOH, and PVDC, among others) were used across the layers to achieve maximum permeation barrier with minimum total mass. However, multi-materials in the mix can often make a package more difficult to recycle.

UltraGuard™ Solutions improve the barrier against various types of permeants, deliver the flexibility to optimize layer thickness or film barrier performance and allow a better balance of properties in HDPE/LLDPE or HDPE/LDPE blends. The result brings significant value and design flexibility for converters and brand owners working to improve flexible packaging recyclability.

Vibrant colors and transparency

We choose with our eyes and we choose with color. This very human behavior is important in both the 2022 trends of strong, bold colors and transparency. Bright, bold colors in packaging immediately catch the eye and draw attention to a product. Strong colors also scream confidence and can turn something ordinary into something special.

With the world returning to a new sense of connection and optimism, Milliken’s ColorDirection 2022 Emerging Confidence range of impactful colors will give your products the eye-catching appeal to sway consumers as they look for companies to believe in. These six trend colors provide design inspiration and a marketing roadmap to help build the ultimate customer color experience, and can be sourced through Milliken’s globally leading colorants.

Transparent design isn’t new, but its strong resurgence in 2022 might have something to do with simplicity. Transparency offers consumers the chance to be enticed by the products themselves, inside the package. NX UltraClear™ PP, clarified with Millad NX 8000 ECO, delivers crystal clear, glass like clarity with the added sustainability benefits of PP. Polypropylene has the lowest density of all packaging plastics, allowing for reduced packaging weight, reduced transport costs and reduced waste.

Change leads to innovation

Expect to see lots of market disruption in the coming year. Sustainability concerns, technology advances and our changing lifestyles will continue to drive change. At Milliken we are proud to be at the forefront of new technologies that are delivering positive surprises in packaging now and into the future.