Packaging Innovations 2019: Innovating in and around plastics for a more sustainable future

04 Mar 2019 --- Packaging Innovations 2019 Show Director, James Drake-Brockman, predicted that at this year’s show the sustainability debate around plastics would progress from “what needs to be done” to an evaluation of “what we are actually doing.” This proved to be the case. Although nobody within the UK packaging industry appears to deny the gravity of the global plastic pollution problem, strategies with how best to deal with it vary greatly. During the show, PackagingInsights found an array of innovation within plastics packaging designed to enhance recyclability. Notable examples include Mondi’s fully recyclable laminate, the BarrierPack Recyclable, in addition to innovation in plastic alternatives, such as The Sherwood Group’s water-based biodegradable barrier control, Puracoat, applicable to cartonboard.

The drive to create more sustainable packaging is a moral obligation now supported by increasingly challenging regulatory enforcement. In the lead up to Packaging Innovations 2019, the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) announced plans to implement a tax on plastics containing less than 30 percent recyclate, with UK recycling levels and infrastructure reportedly lagging behind European standards.

DEFRA will also introduce an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme, which will make producers responsible for the cost of recycling, as well as a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) for cans and bottles. The UK government will elicit industry opinions on its plans for a period of 12 weeks, closing on 13 May 2019. The viability and efficacy of these three strategies were hotly debated during the show.

EPR over a plastics tax, please: The expert view
Barry Turner, Plastic & Flexible Packaging Group Director for the British Plastics Federation (BPF), supports the introduction of EPR but he is wary of a plastics tax since there is no way to guarantee the funds will be reinvested in the UK waste industry.

Garçon Wines' launched its 10 Flat Bottle Case during the show. The case allows for 2.28 times the amount of product to be loaded on a pallet compared to traditional glass wine bottles.“Through the EPR system, there are proposed incentives to drive more sustainable applications right across the supply chain, which we hope will encourage best design and optimize the use of material. It should reduce waste and drive up recycling rates and the BPF looks forward to participating in that,” Turner tells PackagingInsights.

“We would prefer to see this EPR scheme rather than a tax on plastics if we are brutally honest. Our concern with the approach of a tax is that it may not all be reinvested in the system and we desperately need to build up the recycling infrastructure in the UK,” Turner adds.

At the same time, UK packaging expert Neil Farmer raised doubts about a plastics tax because of the difficulties in implementing and regulating such a scheme.

“I have no problem with plastics packaging having a minimum 30 percent recycled content, certainly in the PET industry where plastic bottle manufacturers will achieve those targets. But I’m concerned how you are going to manage a system which requires companies to hit these targets across all packaging. Implementation is not always the same as proposals on paper,” Farmer notes.

In line with Farmer’s comments, UK producer of soft drinks which are commonly packaged in PET bottles, Britvic, claims that it is ready to meet the challenge of both the plastics tax and EPR. “We already have a target for recycled PET by 2020 across our brands and we will be fully compliant within the UK and European legislation around recycled content in packaging,” Shameem Kazmi, Director of Research and Development for Britvic, tells PackagingInsights.

“Let’s not lose sight of the bigger problem: Climate change”
UK start-up Garçon Wines has proved that bottles made from 100 percent recycled PET can be achieved with its flatline wine bottle, launched last year. In timing with Packaging Innovations 2019, Garçon Wines launched its 10 Flat Bottle Case – “the world’s most compact wine bottle case” for transit – in collaboration with DS Smith.

“In this case, we package eight bottles like books and two bottles in the airspace around the neck, thereby cutting the space required for products. In a traditional wine pallet, you’d have around 450 bottles – on our pallet you have in excess of 1,000 bottles. This redMondi's BarrierPack Recyclable can be recycled in existing industrial recycling streams and finds a solution to the long-standing need for recyclable plastic laminates.uces the number of lorries on the road, cutting carbon logistics, but also saving money which is fundamentally important to sustainability,” Santiago Navarro, Co-Founder at Garçon Wines, tells PackagingInsights.

When asked whether he is concerned by the rising tide of consumer anti-plastic sentiment, Navarro’s response was that he is more concerned by knee jerk reactions from within the industry. The industry must not be reactionary, but instead innovate towards what is true sustainability, he says.

“The message I want to bring to Packaging Innovations 2019 is: Let’s not lose sight of the bigger problem, and that’s climate change. The industry goal must be to use the right materials responsibly as we do at Garçon Wines with our 100 percent recycled and recyclable PET bottle. Ultimately, for us, it’s about cutting carbon footprint in primary and secondary packaging. I believe that consumers will quickly notice that we have a much bigger problem [than plastic packaging pollution] and that’s climate change,” Navarro explains.

Garçon Wines’ products are stocked on a number of gifting websites in the UK. The start-up has plans afoot to expand further across Europe in the near future.

Similarly, Mondi’s Stijn De Wit, Head of Marketing and Communication, Consumer Packaging, tells PackagingInsights that the public attention around plastic is actually an opportunity for plastic packaging suppliers because it gives visibility to an issue that will drive more collaboration within the industry.

“It is an opportunity for us, but also FMCG companies and retailers, to collaborate in the value chain to solve the problem that we have with packaging waste. We really see this media and public attention as a gift to stimulate further development of sustainable packaging solutions,” he says.

A long time coming: Mondi launches fully recyclable plastic laminate
A real sustainability highlight of Packaging Innovations 2019 was Mondi’s fully-recyclable plastic laminate for pre-made pouches and FFS roll stock: the BarrierPack Recyclable, according to Farmer. BarrierPack Recyclable has been validated for existing industrial recycling streams.

“Mondi have done a fantastic thing with this pouch. I’ve looked at pouches for many years and despaired about the inability to separate a pouch for recycling which has different materials in it. Mondi’s solution to me is one of the best – its pouch is 100 percent recyclable and I know they’ve worked with several major German companies to get to this stage. I think it could lead to greater things in terms of improving recycling levels across the industry,” Farmer notes.

Sherwood's Puracoat is a water-based food barrier control which creates a fully recyclable and biodegradable pack when applied to food grade cartonboard.In theory, the BarrierPack Recyclable can be recycled in UK-wide household recycling streams, says De Wit, but it depends on the collection and the sorting capabilities of the region. De Wit also highlights that the enhanced recyclability of the pack has not in any way come at the expense of consumer convenience.

“When it comes to appearance, strength and open and closing convenience, the BarrierPack Recyclable is competitive with the more traditional laminates. The challenge was runnability – we had to make sure that the laminate was the right strength to process through existing machinery.”

The BarrierPack Recyclable is currently available in the UK, Europe and the US and can be used for a wide range of applications, including dry food, pet food and household items.

Another plastic specialist innovating to enhance the recyclability of plastics is Ampacet. It has successfully tackled a long-standing issue within the packaging industry – the recyclability of black plastics – with the development of carbon black-free products. These products are near-infrared (NIR) transparent, which allows them to be sorted with near-infrared optical sensors for recycling. Common black plastics cannot be identified and separated by near-infrared optical sensors, meaning black plastic packaging has gradually gone out of circulation despite its aesthetic qualities.

Puracoat: Leaving plastics behind
Not all suppliers are riding the tide of anti-plastic sentiment by innovating within plastics. Some are instead innovating away from plastics to create plastic-alternative packs which achieve competitive barrier properties, durability and flexibility but with a “plastic-free” claim.

A notable example from the Packaging Innovations show floor is The Sherwood Group’s Puracoat water-based food barrier control. When applied to certified cartonboard, it creates a fully recyclable and biodegradable pack for frozen, microwaveable and ovenable products.

“We developed Puracoat as a direct response to the problem of plastic packaging pollution. The main benefit of Puracoat packs over plastic packaging is that it doesn’t have the same connotations of having to separate the pack out at the point of recycling. In many instances, the barrier properties of Puracoat are as effective as plastics, but admittedly not across as many applications,” Chris Waplington, UK Packaging Manager for The Sherwood Group, tells PackagingInsights.

“To date, Puracoat is mainly being used in the UK, although interestingly today at the show we’ve had inquiries from Italian food on-the-go manufacturers looking to take the product on board because it does offer the environmental properties we’ve touched on,” Waplington adds.

Another company innovating within the film applied to cardboard market is Alexir with its Skinpack for fresh meat and fish products. Mainstreamed by packaging giants like Multivac, skinpacks are leading sustainable solutions because of their source Ampacet's carbon black-free packs can be identified and separated by near-infrared optical sensors, bringing recyclability to a notoriously difficult-to-recycle plastic type.reduction and lightweighting credentials. Alexir’s shallow, fully gas-tight and high barrier card tray version of the skin pack delivers an added bonus: unlike other skinpacks, it has ridges which prevent liquids from running off the tray.

Shall we talk about Brexit?
All innovation and industry discussion at Packaging Innovations 2019 was inevitably seen through the lens of an impending Brexit, which is now less than a month away. Industry experts at the show voiced their concern, especially at the potential for a “no-deal Brexit.”

“The uncertainty around Brexit has already had an impact on the British plastics industry,” says Turner of BPF. “It has been most concerning to a lot of our industry members because investment decisions get deferred, the supply of raw material is disrupted, and they are unsure how it is going to affect their exports. There’s an awful lot of nervousness and if we go ‘hard Brexit,’ that will have an adverse impact on not just the plastics sector but lots of sectors across our industry.”

Farmer shares Turner’s concerns, explaining to PackagingInsights: “Many people I talk to – not just in plastics – but other markets as well, are concerned about the outcome of a ‘no-deal Brexit.’ We hope and pray our politicians see sense because our industry is concerned about materials being delivered on time and about cost increases in importing materials. The whole supply chain is integrated and plastics is a global industry – if we have these issues then companies are going to struggle to produce packaging to the standards previously.”

Farmer is more optimistic about the health of the global packaging industry. The global markets are experiencing some turbulence, partly because of the trade way between the US and China, but Farmer is still anticipating approximately 3 percent growth per annum from 2019-2023.

“Europe and the UK may be behind these growth rates, but there is a lot of growth in Asia, with investment in new materials like bioplastics, and consumer demand is holding up very well. Consumer demand is China will be particularly positive over the next five years so I am generally positive about the future,” he notes.

Connective packaging technologies expecting a big year
Another area of expected growth throughout 2019 and beyond is connective packaging technologies. Largely restricted to temporary campaigns to date, technologies like Near-Field Communication (NFC) have reached a stage where the implementation is economical enough for wide-scale roll-outs.Alexir's skinpack builds on conventional designs with added ridges to prevent liquids running off the pack.

“The biggest difference between this year and last year is that connective technologies – particularly NFC – are starting to be applied in standardized ways,” Cameron Worth, Founder of IoT agency, SharpEnd, tells PackagingInsights. “This year you will start to see the first real mass-scale deployments, breaking past the half a million barrier because of the cost-reduction we are now seeing.”

“The last barrier to mainstreaming is consumer attitude. Consumers are becoming more comfortable with things like Apple Pay, which has experienced a 100 percent year-on-year increase in usage – and this will help to drive better engagements with connective packaging technologies,” Worth notes.

Packaging Innovations 2019 brought together the UK packaging industry at a particularly challenging time, with UK recycling levels lagging behind European standards and Brexit on the horizon. Significant advancements in sustainable packaging, epitomized by Mondi’s BarrierPack Recyclable, Garçon Wines’ 10 Flat Bottle Case and Sherwood’s Puracoat food barrier control, as well as growth in new areas like connective packaging technologies, will offer encouragement that new design and innovation can help to manage the adversity.

By Joshua Poole