After The Coca-Cola Company and Danone, ALPLA is the third company to collaborate with Avantium on PEF, a bio-plastic based on Avantium’s proprietary YXY technology. The goal of these collaborations is to bring 100 per cent bio-based PEF bottles to the market by 2016.

“Avantium is very excited to have ALPLA enter the Joint Development Platform for PEF bottles,” Avantium chief executive officer Tom van Aken. “With ALPLA’s extensive and proven know-how in PET conversion, bottle design and bottle manufacturing, ALPLA will be a major contributor to accelerate the commercial roll out and industrialization of PEF.

He continues: “Jointly we can make PEF available for packaging in innovative markets and traditional applications. Together we have taken up the challenge to develop the supply chain for PEF as sustainable bio-based packaging material to the beer and alcoholic beverage markets.”

ALPLA chief executive officer Günther Lehner states: “By signing this agreement ALPLA once again demonstrates its leadership in innovation in this industry. In the 1980’s ALPLA was the first to introduce the two step PET bottle which started the transition from PVC to PET.

“Today we are able to take innovation a step further and introduce our customers in the food, home care and personal care area to the next generation of bio-based polyester, PEF,” says Lehner.

YXY technology
With brand owners are leading the transition from fossil resources based packaging materials like PET (polyethylene terephthalate) to bio-based materials, bio-based materials should be compliant with existing recycling solutions.

The YXY technology platform is a cost-competitive, ground-breaking technology to convert plant-based materials into chemical building blocks for bio-plastics, like PEF, which is a 100 per cent bio-based and recyclable polyester.

The PEF development goal is to replace plastics like PET. PEF developers state their product has superior properties to PET, as a significantly higher barrier to oxygen, carbon dioxide and water, extending product shelf life and reducing production costs.

Molson Coors introduced its 16 oz. aluminum bottle with a trio of tasty brews: Molson Canadian,  Coors Light, and Coors Light Iced T, receiving the 2013 Gold Award in the rigid packaging category, recognized for its technical, graphic and sustainability achievements.

The Canadian Packaging Consumer’s Voice Award is one of five best of show awards and represents the interests of shoppers. The Molson Coors aluminum bottle was selected for its eye-catching graphics, recyclability and the convenience of the bottle’s wide mouth and resealable closure.

PAC has sponsored packaging competitions since 1953. In 2008, PAC held the inaugural Sustainable Packaging Competition which combined with the PAC Packaging Competition to become the PAC Leadership Awards.

Canadian Packaging magazine has been serving the packaging community in Canada since 1947.

Ball introduced its Alumi-Tek bottle in 2008, which combines the sustainability and versatility of a can with the convenience of a bottle.

Headquartered in Broomfield, Co., Ball Corporation is a supplier of high quality packaging for beverage, food and household products customers, and of aerospace and other technologies and services, primarily for the U.S. government. Ball Corporation and its subsidiaries employ approximately 15,000 people worldwide and reported 2012 sales of more than $8.7 billion.

For the latest Ball news and for other company information, visit www.ball.com.

For more information about the PAC Leadership Awards, visit www.pac.ca.

There is nearly country-wide access to recycling for the more common types of plastic packaging for example: 95 per cent of Canadians have access to recycling PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) and HDPE (High-density polyethylene) plastic bottles; 70 – 93 per cent recycling access for other bottles; and, 52 – 93 per cent of Canadians are now able to recycle other non bottle plastic rigid containers.

As well, 61 per cent of Canadians have access to the recycling of plastic bags and other films.

Moreover, the study shows that not only is access high for most Canadians, but that for most plastic packaging, Canadians’ access to recycling plastics packaging continues to grow every year.

For example, compared to the study’s results for 2011 for non bottle rigid plastics: 93 per cent of Canadians have access to recycling of household tubs and lids used for yogurt containers and other dairy products, up from 91 per cent in 2011; 89 per cent access for PET non-bottle rigid packaging (such as trays or bakery clamshells up from 76 per cent in 2011; and 54 per cent access for polystyrene non bottle rigids, up from 44 per cent in 2011.

Also up from 2011 to 2013 is access to recycling of plastic bags and other films. The rate has risen to 61 per cent from 56 per cent in 2011.

It is important to note that the report only measures access as having municipal or private curbside pick up of the material or a drop off depot where the material is accepted.

Plastic bags are accepted at many retail locations across the county so the opportunity to recycle these is likely significantly higher than 61 per cent.

The population access for recycling foam polystyrene increased from 2009 to 2011 to a level where just over 30 per cent of the population has now the opportunity to recycle polystyrene.

It has remained at this level in 2013, even though many more regions across the country, particularly in western Canada, are accepting this material in their recycling systems. Due to fewer MRFs (materials recovery facilities) in Quebec now accepting the material, the rate is generally unchanged since 2011.

In addition, the study, for the first time, identified the extent to which municipalities in Canada now promote the collection of all rigid plastic containers as well as plastic bottles.

The result is that 53 percent of Canadians have access to recycling all plastic containers (excluding bulky plastics such as crates and buckets).

“Municipalities which promote the inclusion of all plastic containers are key to the increases in recycling access for plastics that we see today,” says CPIA vice-president Cathy Cirko.

Recycling programs were examined to determine the extent which caps are included for recycling collection. The study found that only 57 per cent of the population is able to include caps in their recycling programs. The majority of programs in Quebec and Ontario include caps while in Atlantic Canada and the western provinces it is the opposite.

“We will be working to broaden the inclusion of caps in recycling collection programs because recyclers want them and we don’t want them potentially entering the marine environment,” Cirko adds.

“We are delighted that so many more Canadians have access to plastics recycling in their communities than ever before,” states CPIA chief executive officer and president Carol Hochu. “We will continue to work with stewardship agencies and municipalities across Canada to help increase awareness, so that more people will recycle, diverting valuable plastic resources, and supporting our recycling industry.”

The CPIA is the national voice of Canada’s plastics industry, representing the interests of processors, material suppliers, equipment manufacturers and brand owners across the country.

For more information on the CPIA, visit www.plastics.ca.

The corrugated container industry has, for many years, been trying to develop the technology and the processes to successfully address market demands for cost-appropriate, recyclable water-based alternatives to traditional wax treatments.

The push back to wax continues as retailers are increasing their demands that alternatives to waxed corrugated be found, with that focus shifting through the distribution chain from customers to converter.

Landfill or small niche recycling currently remains the only disposable option available for retailers of non-recyclable wax-treated corrugated.

In response, varying solutions with varying degrees of success have been evolving.

But, even if alternatives are utilized, will it be accepted?

Speakers at the 2013 seminar were:
•    Tauni Molder, manager – water-based coatings at The International Group, Inc. discussing the evolution of water-based recyclable treatments;
•    Technical Adhesives Ltd. national sales manger Brian St. Germaine and technical adhesives director Vidor Lowy discussing the impact of gluing challenges at both the box plant and at the customer’s facility when wax alternatives are selected;
•    Norampac‘s technical services for corrugated products Brett Kendall covered critical control points for the successful implementation at your manufacturing site and further developments of his company’s Norshield corrugated product;
•    and Fibre Box Association vice-president Brian O’Banion, who came up from Chicago to discuss the FBA’s new Packaging Protocol covering wax alternatives and its’ purpose and impact on customers, recyclers and containerboard mills.

Perhaps the most tongue wagging elicited amongst the 65+ industry professionals attending the event occurred the speakers pointed that a significant impediment to finding wax alternatives being implemented came from the grassroots of where the cartons are first being used.

According to O’Banion: “We’re not selling (our concepts and technologies) to the right people.

“Understanding and marketing the Packaging Protocol for wax alternatives goes a long way to ensure that the box maker, the customer, the retailer and the recycler all successfully participate in corugated’s closed-loop recycling opportunity,” O’Banion says.

The speakers all agreed that while environmental factors were a focal point amongst retailers, it was not as important for the farmers who are picking and packing fruits and vegetables.

For the farmer, a corrugated carton needs to perform, to be able to safely get produce to a distributor and it needs to be inexpensive. New technologies, are at the moment, more expensive than the wax-based technologies they purport to replace.

Utilizing reusable plastic bins, while an alternative, has two main disadvantages that limit its effectiveness, namely: having to ensure the bins are properly cleaned to avoid bacteria transfer and potentially deadly illnesses; and major change in the way farmers operate.

As strange as it may seem, broccoli plays a huge role in how the corrugated industry is progressing—or not—with wax-replacement technologies.

Acknowledging current agriculture infrastructure, Kendall states, “if you, as a corrugater, can do broccoli, you can do all the other products.”

Kendall explains that in order to keep vegetables fresh until they hit the retail shelves, a complex cooling system is required at the farm-level before it can even be transported to produce distribution and packaging companies.

Essentially, wax-coated corrugated holds the vegetable, which is then loaded with a liquid ice mix to ensure the product remains cool for shipping. The coolness is required to dissipate heat given off by the broccoli – and as the ice melts, it turns the corrugated carton into a soggy mess.

Despite various wax technology options and alternatives to wax available, Kendall and the other speakers at the event note that the farm operators don’t really care for change, because any new technology means capital expenditure costs, and, hold to the old axiom of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’

Colloquialisms aside, farm operators who purchase the wax cartons aren’t looking for alternatives to wax cartons because they already have a packing system in place.

Regardless, if a corrugator offers cascading wax or curtain-coated application options, for the farm operator, it still boils down to which carton will get product safely to its customer for the least amount of money.

Is the corrugated industry doing a good job in looking to provide alternatives to wax-based products? Sure. There are examples of conversion to packaging protocol-approved alternatives to wax, including peppers and wrapped and chilled lettuce in the vegetable segment, and strawberries in the fruit segment.

Are they in tough against effecting changes in the industry because financial constraints enter the picture? You betcha.

Is the Canadian Corrugated and Containerboard Association aware of this? Of course.

But we may have to wait another year to see if the seeds planted provide a bumper crop of wax replacement technology acceptance at the grassroots level.

According to a new report from OfficeMax Grand&Toy, 50 per cent of Canadian enterprise organization heads said their sustainability-related initiatives have added to profits, compared to 31 per cent globally.

The report, Driving Sustainability in Canada and the Role of Supply Chain & Procurement, also found 76 per cent of Canadian decision-makers said sustainability is necessary for competitiveness, and another 87 per cent said their organizations had placed sustainability on their respective agendas permanently.

That compares to global averages of 67 per cent and 70 per cent, respectively.

“Canadian enterprise organizations are showing a strong commitment to sustainability initiatives,” OfficeMax Grand&Toy general manager of marketing Jeff Hayward said in a statement.

“They are using fully-developed operational capabilities to drive profit from these actions.”

But when it comes to the top organizations, or harvesters, Canada starts to fall behind.

Chief executives from harvesters—firms profiting from sustainability-related actions and decisions—are far more likely to commit strongly to sustainability (85 per cent compared to 61 per cent in Canada), according to the report.

“What we’re seeing in Canada is a sustainability approach that emphasizes business efficiencies or cost reductions,” senior researcher and report co-author Warren Shiau said.

“The advantage to this is that enterprise Canadian organizations are among the global leaders in driving profitability from sustainability,” Shiau continued. “In the long term however, these organizations may face challenges as they try to extend sustainability adoption into other areas of the business where positive impact is harder to measure.”

On a mission to produce the best cage-free eggs, the Monroe, NH-based egg producer has got a new fresh look to protect the fresh eggs inside.

Featuring a story-telling photograph of one of the 40 family-farmers that supply eggs, the cartons are made from PETE1 (Polyethylene terephthalate) so the plastic can be recycled almost indefinitely while using very little energy, which according to the company, is actually a more environmentally-responsible choice then pulp packaging used by most egg companies in North America.

For chief executive officer Jesse LaFlamme, Pete & Gerry’s like the use of the recyclable plastic because of the presentation value, that allows the consumer to see the brown eggs.

Noting that there is often a surplus of recycled plastic soda bottles—and that soda company will not use recycled plastic from their own production because it’s not as clear as new plastic—Pete & Gerry’s became involved.

For the production of its cartons, recycled plastic is collected, washed, melted and reformed into egg cartons. According to Pete & Gerry’s, no harsh chemicals are used in the process, and there is no water or toxicity, and any excess plastic from the process is simply recycled again.

For more company information, visit www.peteandgerrys.com.

Such is the case for technology powerhouse Hewlett-Packard, which turned to Montreal-based plastics experts Lavergne Group to form a closed-loop “up-cycling” system to recycle printer cartridges to make new products while reducing the amount of virgin plastics in its manufacturing operations.

“This was not only an unprecedented innovation in terms of getting plastic back into electronic products, but even within the plastics industry it was viewed as a pretty incredible innovation,” said Dean Miller, recycling program manager with HP, during a recent tour of the Lavergne Group recycling facility in Montreal. “Not only because of the technical issues that were involved, but because of the scale (of the project.)”

Combining used ink and toner cartridges and other post-consumer products in the recycling process has kept an estimated 280 million cartridges and two billion polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles out of landfills, according to HP.

But reaching those historic levels of waste diversion wasn’t easy.

HP’s Planet Partners program, aimed at encouraging consumers to recycle electronic products, began accepting printer cartridges in 2000—the same year the company hooked up with Lavergne to begin discussing the idea of a closed-loop recycling process.

It would take nine years before the two began actually recycling cartridges in such a system using prototype equipment.

It took another two years to begin full-scale operation of the process, in 2011.

Prior to turning to Lavergne founder and president Jean-Luc Lavergne for help, HP relied on shredding printer cartridges to extract a percentage of the material.

In the original ‘shred and separate’ process, HP would sort disposed cartridges before shredding them and separating the plastics, where the recovered material was refined.

While that process is still used by the company for cartridges produced in low volume, HP was looking for a way to recover more plastic from its high-volume inkjet cartridges.

The goal was for new products to contain up to 70 per cent recycled material.

“Without (Lavergne) as a partner we would not be talking about this closed-loop success,” Miller said. “We would likely be talking about HP’s ability to recycle the plastic, but we wouldn’t be talking about our ability to put it back in (new) cartridges.”

HP knew it wouldn’t be possible to rely solely on used cartridges for recycled material—according to Miller, the plastic breaks down during processing—and so the company looked to add another plastic product to the mix.

With Lavergne’s expertise in recycling PET bottles—the company has been up-cycling plastic beverage containers since 1995—HP was able to blend the recycled cartridge plastic with bottle plastic to create a better-quality resin.

However, HP was concerned the new resin wouldn’t have the same properties needed in the existing manufacturing facilities.

“Since we had molding tooling and production tools around the world worth millions of dollars that was already running the virgin resin, this material had to be a drop-in replacement,” he said.

Miller said this was the biggest sticking point while engineering the closed-loop recycling process.

“Lavergne was able to compound (its) combination of the recycled bottle material, our recovered PET and (some) additives to create a resin capable of going back into HP cartridges,” Miller said.

In the closed-loop process, used cartridges are shipped in from HP’s recycling facilities in Germany and Nashville, Tenn., before being disassembled using specialized machines, rinsed and turned into “HP clean shred” plastic.

From there, the HP plastic is blended with newly recycled and rinsed PET beverage bottles in the largest ‘V’-style blender in North America—it mixes approximately two tonnes of material at a time, according to HP—to create a homogeneous blend of recycled flake.

The last step before quality check is plastic extrusion, the process of combining recipe components and heating the batch to create pellets of high-quality recycled resin, which is ultimately shipped back to HP for its manufacturing processes.

Plastic flakes from used HP printer and toner cartridges and PET beverage bottles are blended together into a resin used to make new cartridges. PHOTO Dan Ilika

“It’s one thing for a company that has 300,000 employees to say it’s okay for five or six people to go off on a project for four or five years, (but) it’s quite another thing for a company of Lavergne’s size—50 or 60 people—to invest five or six people for four or five years with no return.”

The payoff, though, has been huge, as HP has manufactured more than one billion cartridges with recycled content.

Now HP is looking to expand on that success, hoping to boost the recycled plastic content in its printer cartridges to more than 80 per cent and find ways to expand the use of recycled materials in its full range of products, including printers and computers.

And you can count on a little Canadian ingenuity being involved in the process.

The emphasis is that waste minimization and recovery should be built into the package at its design stage to ensure resource efficiencies as well as protecting products.

Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union claim waste plastics packaging material in the EU15, increased from 9.9 million tonnes in 1998 to 13.1 million tonnes in 2008 representing an increase in share from 17.9 per cent to 21.6 per cent. Of this, 40 per cent of municipal waste was land-filled, 20 per cent incinerated, and only 23 per cent recycled and 17 per cent composted.

In theory, packaging is recycled if it can be collected, transported and cleaned using less energy and resources than would be used to make virgin raw materials.

However, packaging made from thin layers of mixed materials or plastic film is very difficult to recycle. While there have been some technological processes developed to attempt to recycle more, but these are a limited resource meaning that the most popular method of disposal of laminated packaging formats remains incineration.

Incineration isn’t necessarily a poor choice, as it is possible to get some energy value from this type of packaging even though it is essentially burning materials made from a finite raw material resource.

Innovia Films and Sappi Fine Paper Europe are looking at end-of-life options for flexible laminates—specifically either industrial/home composting or ultimately anaerobic digestion which turns waste into a useful energy source.

By combining their separate compostable substrates, Innovia Films’ NatureFlex and Sappi’s Algro Nature they could offer the packaging industry an alternative combining traditional technical properties and equivalent packaging performance.

Sappi business development manager Antoine de Forton says, “Many European countries have realized that home composting is a viable opportunity for managing some of the domestic household waste stream. It empowers home owners to take responsibility for their own degradable waste.

“Packs made from compostable packaging such as the Innovia Films and Sappi solution makes this task much easier,” he states.

Both NatureFlex and Algro Nature are manufactured from renewable resources, wood sourced from managed forests. These cellulose-based products have been fully-tested and independently certified to be compostable in home and industrial environments and are DIN E13432-certificated, as well as approved for food contact.

Innovia Films offers a range of NatureFlex flexible packaging films that provide a moisture barrier that can be tailored to meet the requirements of the product to be packed and an excellent gas barrier. It also offers enhanced print and conversion capability as well as high seal integrity, and its inherent anti-static and thermal stability aids the lamination process to Sappi’s flexible packaging papers and other biopolymers for more complex laminate structures.

Sappi has used its expertise in manufacturing flexible packaging papers to become, it says, the first and only paper producer to offer home compostable papers for packaging.

Algro Nature is a one-side coated, glossy paper and Leine Nature is its uncoated equivalent, with both offering the advantage of using vegetable-based coating ingredients instead of a traditional paper/oil-based materials, which reduces the papers’ environmental impact and carbon footprint.

Available in weights of between 40g/m2 and 80 g/m2 these paper can be used in such applications as confectionery or snack wrappers, soup pouches, sugar sachets, pharmaceutical sachets, and more – and any packaging using these papers will meet the EU Packaging Directive.

Check out this article at www.smartplanet.com written by Tuan C. Nguyen, who examines how simple product and package redesigns can make for a minimal waste package or go the next step and eliminate package waste completely.

In the photo above, the designer has utilized a water-soluble plastic that easily dissolves in water, leaving the product and now packaging waste. While Nivea is noted in the image, this is still just a concept created by the designer, and is not an actual Nivea package.

• The reduction of its drinking water consumption, evaluated at 46.57 percent;
• The use of regional materials, with 47.08 percent of costs used for the purchase of materials produced and extracted locally; and
• The presence of certified wood, accounting for 96.36 percent of total cost for materials.

The project was also acknowledged because it offers a 58-percent reduction in energy costs, when compared to a Canadian reference building. The Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) applauded the fact that 86.6 percent of the construction waste was diverted from landfill.

“We’re honored to receive this certification, which reflects our numerous efforts to protect the environment and to make sustainable development a priority,” said Alain Lemaire, president and CEO of Cascades. “The new plant expansion not only meets the strict standards set by the LEED-NC rating system, but also helps to sustain the local economy, while respecting the building’s more than hundred-year-old heritage and its contribution to the community.”

The new Tri-Pack with SureStrip containers feature the cutting-edge built-in SureStrip tamper-resistant system.

This mechanism, created by Sabert Corporation (headquartered in Sayreville, New Jersey), is incorporated into the container lids, eliminating the need for cafés and other food-to-go business operators to use separate tamper-resistant sealing equipment providing customers a peace-of-mind while cutting costs related to labor, machinery and materials.

Tri-Pack with SureStrip containers are manufactured from high clarity rPET (recycled polyethylene terephtalate) offering a customers a great view of the food as they browse the shelves or refrigerated aisles at the grocery.

The containers are leak-resistant and stackable for ease of storage, and are available in five sizes: 250ml, 375ml, 600ml, 750ml and 1-liter, with one lid size to fit all bases to reduce inventory requirements.

Because the tamper-resistant SureStrip system is built into the lids, it works perfectly every time, helping to reduce costly wastage caused by customers rejecting containers where the tamper resistant seal appears to have failed.

Research conducted in January 2012 by Sabert, the packaging company that developed the SureStrip technology, found that 77 percent of consumers are more likely to buy a product if tamper resistance is present, but 60 per cent would decide not to purchase something when a tamper resistant seal has been noticeably damaged.

Tri-Star managing director Kevin Curran says “Food safety is uppermost in everyone’s minds, and that includes when shopping for salads and deli items to eat on-the-go. Tamper resistance is the perfect way to ensure customers feel secure when purchasing from your café or food-to-go shop, and tamper resistance doesn’t come any better than Tri-Pack with SureStrip.”

Continuing, Curran adds, “The tamper-resistant design is built right into the lid. Once you place your food into one of our Tri-Pack with SureStrip containers, you just snap on the lid to secure it. When consumers want to open the package, all they have to do is pull off the strip that’s built into the edge of the lid, just as you would a shrink band, and open it right up.

“This new feature secures freshness and eliminates the need for heat sealing and shrink banding equipment. The combination of simplicity and savings makes Tri-Pack with SureStrip the perfect solution for locking out tampering and locking in profits while preserving your reputation as a seller of delicious and safe food.”

For more information, visit: www.tri-star.co.uk.

Meet the combidome, a unique carton pack that SIG Combibloc maintains the best features of a bottle, guaranteeing differentiation for any beverage.

Thanks to its shape, stability and smooth pouring action, combidome is easy to handle, like a bottle, while at the same time offering all the proven and unrivalled benefits of a carton pack in terms of product protection, environmental and economic considerations: benefits that are equally important for manufacturers, retailers and consumers.

The entire carton pack—from the base to the dome that gives it its distinctive bottle shape and its name—is manufactured from a paperboard composite.

Markus Boehm, chief market officer at SIG Combibloc: “With combidome, we have created a carton pack that offers a new dimension in differentiation and convenience, and brings with it all the proven environmental benefits of the beverage carton.”

The slim, sturdy combidome carton sits very comfortably in the hand. The carton pack consists of two sections: a carton body, which is composed from the base to the dome of paperboard composite, and the screw cap domeTwist.

Inside the combidome filling machine, the two components are assembled into the finished carton pack, aseptically filled and securely sealed. The handy single-action domeTwist screw cap is positioned in the center of the package’s top, and is easy to open. At 28 mm, the inner diameter of the closure is particularly large, ensuring smooth pouring and enabling consumers to drink conveniently straight from the carton pack.

In an initial stage, combidome is designed as a packaging solution for non-carbonated soft drinks. The protective composite structure of the combidome carton is composed primarily of raw paperboard and polymers. At around 75 per cent, paperboard is the main ingredient of this composite structure, and gives the carton stability.

The inner polymer layers form a liquid barrier for the beverage; the outer layer keeps moisture out. Added to this is a thin aluminum layer, which protects the product from light, oxygen and external odors. This means nutrients and vitamins in the aseptically filled beverages are retained for a long time, with absolutely no preservatives–and as long as the carton pack is left unopened, there is no need for refrigeration either.

Renewable. Sustainable.
With their high content of unprocessed paperboard, manufactured from wood, a renewable raw material, carton packs have been proven to be among the most environmentally-friendly packaging solutions available for long-life beverages.

The same applies for combidome carton packs. This has been demonstrated in an independently verified, ISO-compliant life-cycle assessment conducted in 2012. For instance, considered over the entire life of the packaging, combidome carton packs generate 41 per cent less CO2 (carbon dioxide), use 51 per cent fewer fossil resources, and consume 33 per cent less primary energy than disposable PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) multilayer bottles; when compared to disposable PET monolayer bottles, these figures are 27 per cent for CO2, 42 per cent for fossil resources and 20 per cent for primary energy.

Compared to disposable glass bottles, combidome generates 75 per cent less CO2, uses 66 per cent fewer fossil resources, and consumes 60 per cent less primary energy.

To manufacture combidome, SIG Combibloc uses only raw paperboard made of pulp from trees harvested in FSC (Forest Stewardship Council)-certified forests or other controlled sources which are checked against legality and also consider other key social and environmental aspects.

This means SIG Combibloc is also able to offer combidome carton packs with the FSC label. The label makes it easier for environmentally-conscious consumers to make the right purchasing decision at the sales shelf. The label provides verification that appropriate quantities of wood originating from FSC-certified, well-managed forests were used to manufacture the raw paperboard.

Just like all other carton packs from SIG Combibloc, combidome and its closure are fully recyclable, and are compatible with all national recycling and waste management systems. Combidome can be disposed of and recycled as a single unit.

Flexible and fit for the future
The combidome filling machine offers the design, volume and product flexibility that people have come to expect from SIG Combibloc filling machines. A change of packaging design can be implemented without interrupting the production process, and with no wastage at all. All you need to do is switch the carton sleeves in the magazine of the filling machine. And a volume change takes just a few minutes as well, offering manufacturers the option of positioning products in quantities that are tailored precisely to the intended target audience.

Customers receive the packaging material for combidome in the usual way as finished, flat carton sleeves. The sleeves are pre-printed with the customer’s ordered design and precisely marked with fold lines, which will later give the carton pack its characteristic combidome shape.

The carton blanks have already been sealed into sleeves.

Says Boehm: “All four display surfaces and the distinctive carton dome, are fully printable and thus available for use to enhance the carton design. This means combidome differs markedly from conventional beverage bottles, whose design possibilities are mostly limited to narrow labels or banderoles. The scope this offers makes it possible for manufacturers to communicate information and to attract consumers’ attention to the product – the design on the printed surface becomes the perfect complement to the unusual shape.”

The paperboard for the combidome carton packs is printed with up to six colors using the gravure printing system. This print technique guarantees extremely high-quality print images.

The combidome filling machine from SIG-Combibloc.

Just upside down: the filling process
The combidome filling machine, capable of filling 12,000 carton packs per hour, is based on the dependable, robust filling machine technology from SIG Combibloc, which proves its worth a billion times over, year after year. And with combidome, a carton pack has appeared on the market that really sets itself apart from all other beverage packaging solutions.

First, the domeTwist closures are transferred via an air conveyor into the four-track mandrel wheel area of the filling machine, and each one is placed on a separate mandrel. The combidome carton sleeves, each already sealed along the longitudinal seam, are transferred from the magazine to the mandrel wheel. One sleeve is placed on each mandrel. Next, the top edge of the carton sleeve is activated by hot air and then firmly welded to the base plate of the closure, which has also been pre-heated.

In the next step, the flaps of the dome are sealed to the carton, which is now open only at what will later form the base of the carton pack. The carton packs leave the mandrel wheel area upside down and move into the filling machine’s aseptic zone. There the beverages, which have already been sterilized in UHT (ultra-high temperature processing) units, are filled into the open, sterilized carton packs in four stages.

In this step, the filling nozzles are angled diagonally into the corners of the carton packs. This keeps foaming of the beverage to a minimum, creating a very low-oxygen filling process, which is beneficial for product quality. The carton base is then ultrasonically sealed.

The carton pack is now firmly sealed, and the product is securely protected. In the next step, the flaps are pre-heated by hot air and sealed to the base. The carton packs are then turned the right way up and ejected from the filling machine. Downstream, the aseptically filled combidome carton packs are given the secondary packaging requested by the customer.

Concluding, Boehm states: “Combidome is totally unlike anything that was ever seen on a supermarket shelf. It combines the best features of a carton pack with the best features of a bottle—offering benefits for manufacturers, retailers and consumers alike.”

SIG Combibloc is part of the New Zealand-based Rank Group. For more information on combidome, click HERE.

“Our large land mass, cold climate and resource-intensive economy make us less likely to rank highly on some indicators of environmental sustainability, but many of our poor results are based on our inefficient use of our resources,” said Len Coad, director, director, energy, environment and technology policy. “Canada must promote economic growth without further degrading the environment. Encouraging more sustainable consumption is crucial to achieve that objective.”

A 15^th-place ranking, the same as in 2009, puts Canada ahead of Australia and the US. These three countries are similar: they are three largest countries in terms of land area, and they are the most resource-intensive economies in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Canada does show some excellent environmental results, said the Conference Board. Forests are generally well-protected and well-managed, while air quality has improved modestly and energy use per person is down and water quality is still high.

But several of Canada’s dismal results are due to overconsumption, the report said. In addition to generating the most waste, Canadians’ water withdrawals are nearly double the average of the other countries and are lower only than the US. And despite some improvement, Canadians are still the largest users of energy in the developed world.

Waste: In 2009, Canada generated 777 kilograms of municipal waste per capita—the 17 country average was 578 kg. Most of the waste goes to landfills or incinerators—of the 34 million tonnes generated in 2008, 26 million went there for disposal.

Energy: Canada’s energy use is a mixed picture. Canadian greenhouse gas emissions per capita in 2010 earned a D grade, likely because of increased exports of natural resources. Yet GHG emissions per capita fell by almost five percent between 1990 and 2010. Similarly Canada ranks 17^th and last for the highest level of total energy consumption, but energy intensity decreased by almost 20 percent between 1990 and 2009.  Canada improved the share of its electricity produced by nuclear and renewable sources (mostly hydroelectric power) from 72 percent in 2000 to almost 78 percent in 2011.

Air quality: Canada’s performance on all four air quality indicators in this analysis improved between 1990 and 2009. Yet, compared to most other countries, Canada still emits higher levels per capita of nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

Water: At a glance, the report said, Canada enjoys abundant and safe water. For example, Canada earns an A grade for water quality and ranks 4^th on this indicator. Yet, regions such as the Prairies, southern Ontario and southern Quebec have water quality concerns, due in part to municipal water discharges (still, despite upgrades, one of the largest sources of pollution in Canadian waters). Furthermore, Canada’s water withdrawals are nearly double the 16-country average, and Canadians use more than nine times the water per capita that Denmark does.

Forest management: Canada is a top performer in its forestry practices. Canada gets an A grade and ranks second only to Japan on use of forest resources.

Biodiversity: Canada gets an A for maintaining threatened species. Nevertheless, the number of species at risk in Canada is increasing, although federal biodiversity action plans have been prepared for the agriculture and forestry sectors. In contrast, Canada’s Marine Trophic Index declined between 2000 and 2006, so Canada gets a D grade and ranks last on this indicator. The Marine Trophic Index is a measure of the extent to which a country is fishing for smaller species that are further down the food chain, so it measures the overall level of depletion of fish stocks.

How Canada Performs is a multi-year research program at The Conference Board of Canada to help leaders identify relative strengths and weaknesses in Canada’s socio-economic performance. The How Canada Performs website presents data and analysis on Canada’s performance compared to 16 peer countries in six performance categories: economy, innovation, environment, education and skills, health, and society.

Effective immediately, the LCBO will allow its suppliers the option of using the edge crush test (ECT) as an alternative to the burst strength (or Mullen) test that it has used for over 20 years to assess the delivery performance of corrugated packaging.

After much testing, PPEC determined that:

• the Mullen test had no direct impact on how a box performs;
• performance of the box was more important than whether it was made from kraft or recycled fibers;
• and that any new testing procedures must include all of the package.

“This move (by the LCBO) is long overdue,” says PPEC executive director, John Mullinder, “and opens the door to producers of recycled board, which is the major Canadian—and global—grade, and becoming more so. The Mullen test unfairly discourages the use of recycled board.”

PPEC is the national trade association representing the Canadian paper packaging industry on environmental issues, with membership including the mills that produce containerboard, boxboard and kraft paper packaging, and the converters who turn this into boxes, bags and cartons.

The Canadian paper packaging industry had become increasingly concerned over the LCBO’s reliance on the Mullen test in recent years, Mullinder notes, especially when the provincial wine and liquor monopoly had started fining its suppliers for not meeting its Mullen specifications.

“To our knowledge, the LCBO was the only major wine and liquor retailer in the world still using the Mullen test as a barometer for box failure and/or container breakage. Everyone else had moved to ECT,” notes Mullinder.

PPEC set up a technical committee two years ago and began outreach to the LCBO, visiting its retail distribution center in Durham to understand the conditions the boxes had to perform under, and inviting LCBO staff to tour various paper facilities (a recycling mill, a corrugated converting plant, and an industry testing laboratory).

The council initiated some pilot laboratory trials using the widely accepted measuring standards of the International Safe Transit Association (ISTA).

Various types of boxes and glass bottles were shaken, dropped, and slammed into hard surfaces to see how they performed.

“We developed a good working relationship with the LCBO,” offers  Mullinder. “In fact, our video and test results encouraged them to undertake second and third tests to corroborate our findings.”

The end results shows that the Mullen test was simply not as good a predictor of actual box performance, regardless of whether the box was made from kraft or recycled material; and that any new performance-based testing procedure should include all the elements of the package (the outer box, partitions, and the container inside).

According to PPEC, in one series of tests, the box with the highest Mullen score—and thus considered by the LCBO the most likely to be the best performer—was actually the worst performing box.

Armed with this information, PPEC began to lobby the LCBO to drop the Mullen test and/or allow ECT or another test method to be used to judge package performance. The council offered a revised set of specifications for the LCBO to consider.

“Our relationship with the LCBO has been very good,” says Mullinder. “(It is) not confrontational at all. We worked through the issues and I think we can both be satisfied with the results to date. We recognize, however, that this door to ECT would not have been opened without PPEC’s efforts, and without the solid technical support we received from member companies.”

A four-minute video—Shake, Rattle and Drop— describing PPEC testing and conclusions can be viewed HERE.

For more information on PPEC, visit  www.ppec-paper.com.

After launching its Ready Pac Bistro Organic bowl salads—new SKUs (stock-keeping units) for the conventional line and new private label bowl salads—the company says it is on track to use more than 56 million recycled plastic beverage bottles to create its product packaging in 2013.

“When Ready Pac created the bowl salad line our first requirement was that the packaging used would deliver the necessary shelf life to meet or exceed our customers’ requirements, and the second was to make it easy for a consumer to see how fresh the product is,” says company director of marketing and corporate communications Tristan Simpson.

“Since then, we have made continuous improvements over time to create a more sustainable bowl salad package, and the net effect is we’re making a significant contribution to helping the environment.”

Each Ready Pac bowl salad package, including the insert that separates protein ingredients and condiments from the salad greens, contains 60 percent post-consumer recycled content—slightly more than one recycled 500 mL beverage bottle per package.

As well, the salad bowls and inserts are produced in plants powered by 50 per cent solar energy.

Ready Pac says that when the energy savings of using recycled bottles are combined with the solar energy savings versus conventional power, each Ready Pac bowl salad package saves about 1,000 BTUs or 0.30 kilowatt hours of electric power.

This energy savings is enough to run a traditional 100 watt light bulb for about three hours, or an energy-saving 26 watt/ 1300 lumen bulb for 26 hours.

California-based Ready Pac is a premier producer of convenience fresh foods including fresh-cut produce. With processing facilities throughout the U.S., its award-winning salads, snacks, fresh-cut fruit and vegetables are distributed in supermarkets and restaurant chains across North America.

For more information, visit www.readypac.com.

Constructed adjacent to the company’s existing aluminum rolling mill, the new center will enable the company to produce 400,000 metric tons of aluminum sheet ingot from recycled material annually, and is projected to be the world’s largest aluminum recycling center.

“This investment represents another step in delivering on our commitment to dramatically increase the recycled content of the rolled aluminum sheet we provide to our world-class global customers,” says Novelis president and chief executive officer Phil Martens, “while also signifying our long-term commitment to the European market. The advanced sorting, processing and casting capabilities of the new Nachterstedt operation will propel us closer to our goal of 80 percent recycled content by 2020.”

By increasing the recycled metal input of Novelis aluminum, the company will save valuable natural resources while enabling its customers to create products with a higher recycled content and smaller environmental footprint. Using recycled aluminum as input material requires only five percent of the energy used to make primary aluminum from raw materials, thus avoiding 95 percent of the greenhouse gases associated with production.

The new center will help support the company’s drive to increase end-of-life recycling in Europe, where Novelis is already the leading recycler of aluminum beverage cans. The center will process used beverage cans as well as numerous other forms of aluminum scrap from across continental Europe. The company expects the center to create 200 new jobs when it is commissioned in mid-2014.

The Nachterstedt, Germany expansion is the latest in a series of recycling and casting expansion projects launched by Novelis over the past two years totaling nearly $450 million, including the recent commissioning in November 2012 of its new integrated recycling and casting center in Yeongju, Korea. These projects, and others underway across the world, are designed to increase Novelis’ recycling and casting capacity to 2.1 million tons by 2015.

About Novelis

Novelis is a global leader in aluminum rolling and recycling. For fiscal year 2012, the company operated in 11 countries, had more than 11,000 employees and reported revenue of $11.1 billion. Novelis supplies premium aluminum sheet and foil products to automotive, transportation, packaging, construction, industrial, electronics and printing markets throughout North America, Europe, Asia and South America. Novelis is a subsidiary of Hindalco Industries Limited, one of Asia’s largest integrated producers of aluminum and a leading copper producer. Hindalco is a flagship company of the Aditya Birla Group, a multinational conglomerate based in Mumbai, India. For more information, visit www.novelis.com.

Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller says the government is ending or scaling back programs to fight greenhouse gas emissions, and will fall short of meeting its targets for 2020 and 2050.

Miller says the Liberals cut funding for programs to buy electric vehicles and develop charging stations, and delayed construction of 31 kilometres of HOV lanes because of shrinking revenues.

He gives the government high marks for phasing out coal-fired electricity generation, but says the associated increase in the use of natural gas means it has surpassed coal as the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the energy sector.

Miller also singles out the transportation sector as a special concern, saying it is the largest source of the unwanted emissions.

“Clearly the Ontario government’s commitment to responding to GHG emissions and climate change has become questionable,” Miller told reporters.

“While the coal phase-out is a worth accomplishment, it is now past performance and no new initiatives to garner such measurable benefits or reductions are being advanced.”

Miller’s annual report on climate change also takes the Liberals to task for “a complete lack of engagement around the question of carbon pricing,” and urges action.

“Other jurisdictions are demonstrating that carbon pricing can be adopted without hurting economic growth, while delivering the benefit of lowered GHG emissions,” he said.

“Decisive action on carbon pricing could reboot the program and provide a rate and elusive win-win-win for the government, economy and the environment.”

The report by the UN Environment Program, released just days ahead of a major climate conference, said the concentration of heat-trapping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is up about 20 per cent since 2000.

Scientists say those emissions are contributing to climate change and that failure to contain them could have dangerous consequences, including rising sea levels inundating coastal cities, dramatic shifts in rainfall disrupting agriculture and drinking water, the spread of diseases and the extinction of species.

Emissions levels, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, need to come down by 14% by 2020 for the world to reach a pathway that could keep the global temperature rise below 2 degrees C, compared with pre-industrial levels, UNEP said. That’s the stated goal of U.N. climate negotiations, which resume next week in Doha, Qatar.
But it won’t happen if countries don’t come ahead with more ambitious plans to cut emissions than what’s currently on the table.

The US agency said if no swift action is taken, emissions are likely to hit 58 gigatons in 2020 – 14 gigatons too much to have a chance of limiting warming to 2 degrees. The projected gap is now bigger than it was last year and in 2010.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said that bridging the gap remains doable and that there are many “inspiring” actions at the national level on renewable energy, energy efficiency, protecting forests, and vehicle emissions standards.

“Yet the sobering fact remains that a transition to a low-carbon, inclusive Green Economy is happening far too slowly and the opportunity for meeting the 44 Gt target is narrowing annually,” Steiner said.

The report confirmed scientific observations that the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is growing, not shrinking. On Nov. 20 the World Meteorological Organization reported that the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a record high last year.

Climate activists said the reports underscored the urgency in advancing clean technologies, such as wind and solar power.

“The only way we are going achieve the necessary cuts in emissions is to move away from fossil fuels and towards a world of renewable energy,” said Kaisa Kosonen, climate policy adviser at Greenpeace.

The Kyoto Protocol, the only international agreement to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases from industrial countries, expires this year. Talks in Doha will focus on extending it for another term while negotiators work on a more comprehensive climate pact that would also include developing countries, whose share of global emissions is growing.

With the expansion of its portfolio of Scotch Recycled Corrugate Tapes, 3M is arming companies with the tape necessary to tackle the wide range of corrugate in the marketplace in a cost effective manner. The expanded line offers options for tape weight, backing strength and performance.

Designed specifically for use with recycled corrugated boxes (which are more difficult to seal because of shorter, flatter fibers and a less smooth surface area) 3M’s family of Scotch Recycled Corrugated Tapes have up to 10 times the tack of conventional box sealing tapes. As a result, the versatile, super-sticky tape will stick to most packaging material in use today.

According to 3M, the constant state of flux of packaging materials is due to the rapidly changing environmental standards, which force companies to continually seek new ways to reduce cost and improve their company’s environmental footprint.

“Nearly all of the products being shipped today use corrugated cardboard and with upwards of 85 percent of it being recovered, the majority of boxes contain some recycled content,” says 3M marketing manager (U.S.) Brian Kenady. “With so much variation, it is important that companies are equipped with sealing tape that doesn’t require multiple applications in order to keep the products secure. It makes sense not only from an environmental footprint perspective but also from the bottom line.”

In late 2010, 3M unveiled the first product in the Scotch Recycled Corrugate Tape line. Since its introduction, the tape has helped manufacturers across industries cut their costs by thousands of dollars. In one instance, the Recycled Corrugate Tape enabled a major apparel manufacturer to realize significant cost savings by using only a single strip of tape on their boxes instead of using multiple strips.

3M’s Recycled Corrugate Tape products can be applied by hand for low volume packaging with a hand-held tape dispenser or with a 3M-Matic Case Sealer for high productivity packing. For more information about the complete line of 3M Recycled Corrugate Tapes, visit www.3M.com/packaging.

But in real life he wants to be a paper industry revolutionary who saves forests from chainsaws.

Harrelson, on the phone from Atlanta, Ga., where he’s filming the sequel to The Hunger Games and reprising his role as the heavy drinking Haymitch Abernathy, says his support of Manitoba-based Prairie Pulp and Paper Inc., is not an act.

Prairie Pulp and Paper Inc., produces paper made from waste wheat straw, and Harrelson said he wants to get in on the movement that will see North America’s first non-wood pulp-and-paper mill set up in Manitoba.

“When we build a plant there in Manitoba, it’s going to be 100 per cent wood free . . . really from agricultural waste,” said Harrelson, a two-time Academy Award nominee. “I’d like to see a revolution in the paper industry and I think this is an important part of that process.”

Prairie Pulp and Paper has commissioned an environmental study that concludes the company’s recently-launched Step Forward wheat-based paper has the least amount of environmental impact among North American copy papers, including 100 per cent recycled paper.

Step Forward paper, currently made in India with 80 per cent waste wheat straw and 20 per cent wood fibres, has been available at more than 330 Staples stores across Canada since last summer.

Of the seven categories studied, Step Forward was found to have the lowest environmental impacts with regards to non-renewable energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, wastewater volume and aquatic acidification.

Vancouver-based Offsetters was commissioned by Prairie Pulp and Paper Inc. to conduct the environmental study.

James Tansey, president of Offsetters, said straw-based copy paper is an innovative product that uses waste wheat straw from the agriculture industry and transforms it for use in papermaking.

“We feel confident putting our brand on their claims,” said Tansey.

Offsetters was the first official supplier of carbon offsets in the history of the Olympics during Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Games.

Harrelson, known for his strict vegan diet and support for anything that involves hemp, said he wants to save trees, which is why he supports making paper from waste wheat because it doesn’t involve logging forests.

“I’d like to see it get to the point where we never use trees to make paper because to me it’s just a barbaric way to make it,” he said. “It’d be nice to just stop using the forest.

“I hope people don’t lose their jobs or can transition into other jobs, but to me, we’ve taxed the forest enough.”

Prairie Pulp and Paper President Jeff Golfman said his $500-million project could employ 300 people and require between 300,000 and 400,000 tonnes of straw each year.

“This is a huge step forward for our project and for the prospect of making paper in Manitoba that would support Manitoba farmers. We’re very excited to be where we are right now,” he said in a statement.

Canopy, a Vancouver-based not-for-profit environmental organization, has been supporting the development of a straw-paper industry in North America for more than a decade.

Last year, Canopy helped publish a limited edition straw-paper version of Margaret Atwood’s ‘In Other Worlds’, her collection of science-fiction stories.

Canopy says 90 per cent of logging in Canada occurs in old growth forests and roughly 50 per cent of what’s cut goes into paper production.

Canopy says making paper from leftover straw can protect forest and create new revenues for farmers and new green jobs in rural communities.

But The Forest Products Association of Canada, the voice of Canada’s wood, pulp and paper producers, said the forest industry has made huge strides when it comes to environmental sustainability and continues to explore more improvements.

Canada’s forest products industry is worth $57-billion dollars annually and directly employs 230,000 Canadians in 200 communities.

The association’s environmental director, Bob Larocque, said the industry strives to use every piece of timber it harvests, including using wood chips to make paper and turning bark and wood residues into biomass energy that is sold on the electrical power grid.

Some forest operations are turning tree sludges into biogas that powers their mills, he said.

“We’re very proud that we don’t waste anything,” said Larocque. “We use every part of the tree that we harvest. We’re really becoming more like a bio-refinery, an integrated industry.”

Larocque said he hasn’t personally studied straw-based paper, but cautioned that paper needs wood fibres to ensure strength and quality.

There’s also questions about the availability of waste wheat to make the paper, he said.

“I think it’s going to be a niche product,” said Larocque.

Harrelson said he expects the forest industry to protect itself but is convinced wheat-based paper “is an idea whose time has come.”

He said he started supporting environmental causes in the 1980s when he was part of the cast of the hit TV comedy Cheers.

He said he attended an American Oceans event on behalf of fellow Cheers cast member Ted Danson, and was hooked.

“I’ve always felt a strong connection to nature,” said Harrelson.