Borealis announces €49 million investment to scale up PP production

In a decisive move to align with tightening European environmental mandates, Borealis has announced a €49 million strategic investment to expand production of its Borstar Nextension polypropylene (PP) at its Burghausen manufacturing site.

Source: PackagingEurope

The investment targets the commercial scale-up of single-site polypropylene (ssPP) grades. These advanced materials are designed to deliver a “step-change” in purity and processability, providing the technical foundation for industries—including healthcare, mobility, and packaging—to transition away from hard-to-recycle multi-material plastics.

The Rise of High-Performance Monomaterials

A central pillar of the Borealis strategy is the facilitation of monomaterial solutions. Traditionally, complex packaging requires multilayer structures of different plastics to achieve necessary barrier and strength properties, a design that renders recycling nearly impossible.

The Borstar Nextension technology allows for the tailoring of performance properties—such as superior clarity, sealing performance, and mechanical strength—within a single PP material.

• Weight Reduction: Enables downgauging (thinner packaging) without compromising durability.
• Circularity: Simplifies the waste stream by replacing multi-material laminates with fully recyclable monomaterial PP.
• Regulatory Compliance: Directly supports the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), which mandates that 100% of packaging in the EU must be recyclable by 2030.

The Burghausen expansion follows a major collaborative milestone reached last month. Borealis partnered with Borouge to launch Recleo™, a global brand of mechanically recycled polyolefins.