Did you notice that black packaging is not exactly common? Or were you too engrossed in your phone to catch this little detail in life? Anyhoo, there is a good reason for it.
The kind of deep black commonly seen in premium packaging for cosmetics, personal care, food, and everyday consumer goods has long come with a recycling problem.
Unbeknownst to the non-scientist masses, traditional black packaging relies on carbon black pigment, and that presents a serious sustainability problem. In theory, it can be recycled. In reality, most recycling facilities depend on near-infrared (NIR) scanners to identify and sort materials. Carbon black absorbs infrared light, which makes black packaging effectively invisible to those machines.
You know what that leads to. Perfectly recyclable plastic gets misclassified and often ends up incinerated or landfilled. Black may look great on packaging, but it clashes directly with circular economy goals, which focus on whether materials ever become waste or can stay in use for as long as possible.
That narrative changes with UPM Circular Renewable Black.
Unlike conventional carbon black, UPM’s pigment is lignin-based. Lignin does not fully absorb NIR wavelengths, allowing just enough infrared light to be reflected for recycling systems to detect the plastic underneath. In short, sorting machines can finally “see” black packaging.
The clever part is that nothing changes visually. The pigment still absorbs visible light very effectively, so it looks deep, rich black to the human eye. Since NIR scanners operate outside the visible spectrum, the packaging keeps its premium appearance while remaining detectable during recycling.
There is another win here. UPM Circular Renewable Black is bio-based, not fossil-based. The lignin comes from wood processing and is renewable, abundant, and already part of the pulp and paper ecosystem. According to UPM, the pigment stores more carbon than is emitted during its lifecycle, pushing it beyond “less bad” sustainability into climate-positive territory, which is still rare in materials science.
With UPM Circular Renewable Black, brands no longer have to choose between visual impact and recyclability. They can finally have both. Deep black aesthetics, compatibility with existing recycling infrastructure, and credible sustainability in one material. It also nudges the industry away from fossil-based chemicals toward industrial-scale biochemicals.
I know, exciting stuff. My only concern is cost. Adoption has to make economic sense for brands, or the added burden will simply be passed on to consumers. That would slow the uptake of something genuinely good for the environment in the long run.
You can learn more about UPM Circular Renewable Black here.
Images: UPM.