Partnership for recyclability of air capsule e-commerce packaging

Air capsule e-commerce packaging with Dow’s PE resins

Dow, a global materials science company, announced its collaboration with Procter & Gamble China (P&G China) for an air capsule e-commerce packaging. The air capsule, enabled by P&G China’s innovation and Dow’s materials, aims to deliver an effective and efficient way to protect products while avoiding excessive packaging in e-commerce and facilitating recyclability.

The air capsule packaging is a significant milestone in advancing sustainability for the e-commerce industry, offering benefits such as:

• Reduction of >40% in material weight compared to traditional corrugated parcel boxes, thus requiring only 25% of original trucking and 75% less warehouse space
• Safe and reliable cushion protection
• Enabling recyclability through an all-PE mono material structure

The packaging design is also reliable and convenient for consumers, with features such as a tamper-free opening for content integrity, an easy-to-tear strip, and an auto-deflate feature for hassle-free disposal after opening.

E-commerce packaging typically consists of carton boxes as the outer packaging, with air cushion bags or bubble wrap inside to protect and stabilize the products during delivery. However, the traditional air cushion bag film structure is multi-material – such as nylon (to provide high gas barrier for extended shelf life), a tie-layer resin, and polyethylene – making it difficult to recycle through conventional methods.

Dow’s ELITE™ AT high performance PE resins provide comparable gas barrier performance, allowing nylon to be removed from the formulation to create an all-PE mono material structure that enables recyclability of the packaging.