Digitally printing on plastic-free coffee cups: Xeikon partners with Kotkamills Oy

25 Mar 2019 --- Global digital printing company Xeikon has partnered with paper products manufacturer Kotkamills Oy to deliver the “next generation” of sustainable food packaging printed with Xeikon dry toner digital technology. Kotkamills Oy’s latest release is recyclable, repulpable and renewable paperboard for the packaging and food service industries. Its ISLA Duo paper cup stock, for example, delivers plastic-free coffee cups which can now be digitally printed on and used commercially.

ISLA Duo paper stock was a key component of Kotkamills Oy’s winning plastic-free coffee cup which was one of the 12 champions of the NextGen Cup Challenge. The competition sought to find a plastic-free cup to lessen the waste generated by on-the-go coffee consumption. 

Xeikon’s digital printing method uses food-safe dry toner technology together with Kotkamills’ plastic-free, recyclable and biodegradable board produces a digitally printed paper cup that “answers consumer demand for sustainable paper cups to be used for drinks on the go.” 

Click to EnlargeVisitors to this year’s Xeikon Café will have the opportunity to see the first demonstrations of the Xeikon 3500 dry toner digital press printing on Kotkamills ISLA Duo paper cup stock.“We were delighted to test and validate the new paper cup stock ISLA Duo from Kotkamills. During testing, we saw a match between our food-safe dry toner technology and the ISLA Duo board characteristics. We tested printability, productivity and toner adhesion. The results were consistent,” says Sébastien Stabel, Market Segment Manager Carton Packaging at Xeikon.

“By working together with suppliers in substrates, workflow, converting and finishing, we can effectively demonstrate what can be achieved by fully integrated end-to-end solutions for digital production,” he adds.

Visitors to this year’s Xeikon Café will have the opportunity to see the first demonstrations of the Xeikon 3500 dry toner digital press printing on Kotkamills ISLA Duo paper cup stock.

A winning plastic-free solution
The NextGen Consortium is a multi-year, multi-industry global consortium that aims to advance the design, commercialization and recovery of food packaging alternatives. The competition was a global innovation challenge to redesign the fiber to-go cup and create a widely recyclable and/or compostable cup. These 12 winning solutions – broadly categorized into innovative cup liners, new materials and reusable cup service models – have the potential to turn the 250 billion fiber to-go cups used annually from waste into a valuable material in the recycling system.

The cup challenge is the first initiative of the NextGen Consortium, which is a multi-year, multi-industry global consortium which aims to advance the design, commercialization and recovery of food packaging alternatives. Both the Consortium and Challenge are managed by Closed Loop Partners, with Starbucks and McDonald’s as Founding Partners, The World Wildlife Fund (WFF) as an Advisory Partner, The Coca-Cola Company and Yum! Brands as Supporting Partners alongside Nestlé.

The crux of the problem with disposable coffee cups is that although they are technically recyclable, the polyethylene (PE) plastic film that protects the paperboard from liquid needs to be recycled separately. Even in more recent generations of coffee cups, where the plastic films have been replaced with a bio-based alternative, the recycling process is still complex and can hinder sustainable progress. 

After a “rigorous” four-month review process by an esteemed group of judges including NextGen Consortium business leaders, as well as experts in recycling, composting and packaging, the challenge narrowed the nearly 500 submissions from over 50 countries down to 12 winners.  

Kotkamills Oy innovation has created a plastic-free, recyclable and compostable cup stock material that can be processed into cups at existing cup making machines. All the ISLA Duo cup stocks should be easy to recycle after use, without a need to separate any plastics from wood fibers. 

“Plastic-free products will be a game changer in packaging and food service industries. We want to do our share by providing the markets with our next-generation packaging material solutions,” says Kotkamills CEO Markku Hämäläinen.

Before the winners were announced, PackagingInsights spoke to runner-up Irish company Butterfly Cup. The Butterfly Cup claims to be the “world’s first” 100 percent plastic-free and fully recyclable all-in-one coffee cup. As a start-up, the company launched its commercial product 15 months ago and is currently a supplier to three cup manufacturers, with three more in the pipeline. This is across ten countries including Germany, Japan, the US, UK and South Africa.   

By Laxmi Haigh

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