Calling it a breakthrough, Dow Chemical Co. has cracked the code to recycling certain multi-layer pouches that would otherwise typically be thrown away.

The company’s new RecycleReady technology works for one particular type of pouch design, but Lamy Chopin, global development leader for packaging and specialty plastics at Dow, expects this to be the basis for a long line of new pouch recycling developments.

With RecycleReady, Dow uses its Retain brand of compatibilizer to allow polyethylene and ethylene vinyl alcohol to be reprocessed together to create a useful recycled film.