Chinaplas 2026 Highlights! LG Chem Uniqable Leads the Way in Pet Packaging Trends

Currently, the pet economy is entering a critical phase of rapid growth and high-quality development—a concrete outcome driven by the convergence of societal structural changes, heightened consumer emotional needs, and urban consumption upgrades. According to the "2026 China Pet Industry White Paper (Consumer Report)," the number of dogs and cats in urban areas reached 126 million in 2025, with the consumer market size surpassing RMB 312.6 billion.

Therefore, sectors such as pet supplies, food, and medical services are unleashing strong consumption potential, and the pet food packaging industry is also undergoing a transformation towards intelligence, personalization, and sustainability. LG Chem is actively focusing on the sustainable development of the pet economy and has specially launched the eco-friendly packaging material brand UNIQABLE™, to help build a society where humans and pets coexist, and to reshape the concept of green consumption.

UNIQABLE™ is LG Chem's sustainable packaging material brand. The materials in this series areAll-PE mono-material and 100% recyclable。

UNIQABLE™ products exhibit excellent heat resistance, ductility, printability, superior optical properties, and high transparency, making them widely suitable for food packaging, composite films, stand-up liquid packaging, and industrial packaging applications.

LG Chem can customize products with varying numbers of layers and grades according to customer requirements, and is continuously developing high-performance packaging films featuring high stiffness, high transparency, excellent stretchability, and sealability.

Currently, film-type packaging materials are usually made of multiple materials such as PET and nylon. Most flexible packaging printing layers require clear and bright images, good chemical resistance, and unique processing methods, and typically use high-heat-resistant PET films, which are then combined with PE films that have good heat-sealing properties. However, these multi-material composite films are difficult to recycle, and most are disposed of by landfill or incineration.

LG Chem's UNIQABLE™ film is an innovative material made of 100% PE single material, maintaining the same physical properties as traditional composite packaging films, while meeting the dual demands of sustainability and high performance.

Meanwhile, LG Chem's BOPE technology has won the highest award at the 2024 Korea Industrial Technology R&D Awards. The developed biaxially oriented polyethylene film, redesigned from the polymer crystalline structure, offers high rigidity and transparency even as a single material, making it easy to recycle and reuse when used as packaging material.

In 2024, LG Chem, in collaboration with the German century-old packaging machinery manufacturer Reifenhäuser Group, successfully developed and commercially mass-produced ultra-thin MDOPE film with a thickness of only 18 μm. In 2025, the two parties further broke the record by reducing the film thickness to 14 μm, achieving a world-leading ultra-thin level.

This achievement fully validates the excellent technical capability and processing stability of the single-material film, enabling long-duration continuous production without damage. Moreover, compared to conventional 25-μm-thick single-material packaging films, LG Chem’s innovative film product reduces plastic usage by approximately 44%.