Spotlight on hot drinks packaging: Stora Enso and Metsä Board explore plastic-free solutions

02 Jun 2021 --- Hot drinks packaging is a niche market that presents particular difficulties and considerations in the industry-wide quest for enhanced environmental sustainability standards. As with other market segments, a core challenge is maintaining pack performance and safety while transitioning to “greener” materials.

As industry searches for solutions, both in home appliances and the foodservice sector, PackagingInsights discusses current challenges and recent innovations with experts from Metsä Board and Stora Enso.

They discuss issues including recyclability, stakeholder collaboration and improving barrier coatings, which are traditionally made with fossil fuel-based plastics. 

Finding eco-designs 
Ebba Mannheimer, head of business for new barrier solutions at Stora Enso, says one of the most simple and effective answers to hot drinks packaging’s challenges lies in paper. 

“The challenge lies in providing the most sustainable products while not compromising performance and food safety aspects. Paper cups are a good example of suitable products for hot beverages as they fulfill all requirement demands; they are renewable, recyclable, have a low carbon footprint and safely hold hot drinks for the consumers to enjoy.”

Ebba Mannheimer, head of business for new barrier solutions at Stora Enso.She explains that replacing plastic or other materials based on fossil fuels with a recyclable alternative can have a positive impact on carbon emissions. “The materials used for paper cups are themselves sustainable alternatives to fossil-based ones. By recycling paper cups, the carbon footprint can be cut in half.” 

Innova Market Insights finds that 49 percent of global hot drinks packaging launches last year contained plastic. The majority of products contain multiple materials, but only 17 percent of launches in 2020 contained paper. With paper, however, environmental concerns become rest more on waste management rather than the materials, Mannheimer says. 

“Paper cups are technically recyclable. For example, Stora Enso’s Langerbrugge Mill in Belgium has the readiness to potentially recycle billions of used paper cups. The challenge is more about getting these cups collected.” 

“Recycling must be made easy for consumers. To support circular business models, Stora Enso is inviting partners and customers to jointly develop business models for collecting paper cups,” she asserts. 

Consumer perceptions on paper’s recyclability and reusability are, however, only slightly more favorable than toward plastic, according to Innova Market Insights 2021 global consumer survey. Over 35 percent of global consumers say paper performs excellently in recycling, while around 29 percent say the same for plastic. This rises above 37 percent for cardboard. 

Aiming for sustainability and efficiency 
Mikko Mannola, VP of sales food service boards at Metsä Board, asserts another central issue in producing materials suitable for hot liquids arises in complications created by multiple stakeholders, rendering unified satisfaction on sustainability “near impossible.”

“The main challenge is the number of variables involved in the packaging production. You need to combine high-quality baseboard with modern polyethylene (PE) extrusion coating or dispersion coating. The most effective way to do this is when the whole process, starting from the pulp right up until the barrier coating, is executed by the same company, ideally in one location.” Mikko Mannola, VP of sales food service boards at Metsä Board.

“For the materials, the important criteria are fossil free, renewable, easily recyclable, compostable and secure availability. The materials need to be possible to process with the existing production equipment, otherwise the new investments in short and medium would be too big, and therefore not sustainable.”

“There are a lot of variables in the process. Therefore, having full control of the whole process is crucial to achieving consistent excellent quality. There are also many stakeholders in the foodservice market: paperboard suppliers, converters, brand owners and end consumers.”

Reaching a solution that satisfies the sustainability wishes of these stakeholders is not possible, says Mannola, and answering to majority demands becomes necessary. 

“We can optimize sustainability from our end, but when we add all of the different stakeholders into the picture, it becomes clear that it is impossible to find a solution that is perfect for everybody. The key to success is to find a sustainability route that is industrially viable and the majority of stakeholders accept that.”

New technologies 
Traditional paper cups consist of renewable fibers as well as a thin plastic lining in order to safely hold the liquids and enable heat-sealing. This presents a recyclability challenge and a reliance on fossil-based material. Some companies, like Stora Enso, have been taking strides to alter plastic linings and answer these challenges. 

“Plastic linings can already be offered as a fully renewable material. Further, the lining can be replaced by novel barrier technologies that further enhance recyclability and plastic reduction,” explains Mannheimer. 

Stora Enso is offering Aqua+ dispersion barrier products, which utilize water-based dispersion technology. This enables the board to be liquid resistant in use while providing high fiber recovery in recycling processes. 

Barrier coatings are essential in creating hot drinks packs with paper.“Within the liquid packaging sector, we focus on developing technologies that further increase the renewable content in barriers, as well as make barrier products easier to recycle. Already today, barrier coatings enable vast amounts of plastic to be reduced from supply chains,” Mannheimer continues. 

“Our aim is to continue to innovate in plastics reduction. This includes the development of bio-based polymers that enable companies to decouple from fossil-based materials, and creating new ways to simplify the recycling of those materials.”

Barrier challenges 
Mannola agrees that future innovation in hot drinks packaging will center around improving barrier properties. 

“From a technology point of view, there are two basic alternatives: extrusion coated barrier or dispersion coated barrier. At the moment, extrusion coating is dominating, and it remains to be seen how dispersion coating will develop to compete efficiently and provide similar protective properties.”

Creating economical, effective dispersion coating technologies is an ongoing challenge, details of which companies like Metsä Board cannot disclose during development. 

“As always, new product development is experimental and confidential. We regularly interact with the various stakeholders in the market and try to foresee and understand the regulative framework.” 

By Louis Gore-Langton