Development of a packaging test method
| Authors: | Carl J. Houtman, Hannah Haynes, Ashok Ghosh, Seongkyung Park, Colleen Walker |
| Year: | 2026 |
| Type: | Scientific Journal |
| Station: | Forest Products Laboratory |
| Source: | TAPPI Journal |
Abstract
Innovation in packaging design will be facilitated by a simple test method to indicate whether a product is compatible with paper recycling. Three laboratories cooperated on the development of a method and used it on linerboard, coated paperboard, wet-strength paperboard, and white copy paper. This test method includes pulping and screening. The data presented here illustrate the factors affecting the results of a bench-scale test. Our observations show that a bench-scale test can give reproducible results for yield of less than 5%. We also present an approach to contaminant assessment based on current published test methods. A specification with a lower limit on yield of 70% and a contaminant level of less than 5,000 particles/kg is proposed.
Application: The purpose of this work is to provide a validated test method for determining yield during recycling of packaging materials.