BASF and the Swedish packaging material manufacturer BillerudKorsnäs have developed a unique home-compostable paper laminate for flexible packaging. It can be used to produce wraps with individually adjusted barrier properties e.g. for cookies, ice cream, cereal bars and dairy items as well as wrappers for fish, meat and cheese freshly sold in supermarkets. And it is a solution that meets today’s requirement for sustainability by being organically recyclable. The multi-layer laminate consists of three basic components: BillerudKorsnäs‘ paper ConFlex® Silk, a sealing layer made of BASF’s certified home compostable and partly bio-based biopolymer ecovio® and BASF’s water-based adhesive Epotal® Eco 3675 X. All components are certified home-compostable according to official European certification schemes for home-composting. The laminate contains a high share of renewables and extends the end-of-life options for multi-layer flexible packaging by being organically recyclable. The new home-compostable solution has the same performance features as conventional multi-layer packaging: it is puncture resistant, shows a good printability, excellent heat-seal properties and can be processed on standard packaging machines.

Tetra Pak showcases its new UHT 2.0 heating portfolio and Tetra Pak® E3/Speed Hyper packaging equipment on World Milk Day in support of this year’s theme of sustainability and Dairy’s commitment to innovation to reduce environmental footprint. Tetra Pak’s new UHT 2.0 portfolio with OneStep technology and Tetra Pak® E3/Speed Hyper reduce water and steam consumption, creating less wastewater and therefore also lowering the cost of its removal for Dairy manufacturers. Adding a Tetra Pak® Water Filtering Station to Tetra Pak® E3/Speed Hyper helps recover 5500 litres of water per filling machine running hour (up to 95%), while contributing to lower water consumption1. With water scarcity on the rise, wastewater is increasingly becoming a pressing industry concern. Up to a fifth of Tetra Pak’s customers are based in high or extremely high-risk water areas and the company is prioritising action to address this. The combination of UHT 2.0 with OneStep technology and Tetra Pak® E3/Speed Hyper scores highly across industry benchmarks for sustainability, with a 0.8 GHG Index score, a 0.3 Water Index score and a Product Losses Index score of 0.72. When compared to a conventional line solution3 this optimal integrated solution reduces GHG emissions by 20%, water usage by 70% and product losses by 30%.

Smurfit Kappa recently published its second annual Green Bond Allocation and Impact Report which provides details on the use of proceeds of its inaugural €1 billion dual-tranche Green Bond issued in September 2021. Circular economy adapted products, production technologies and processes and/or certified eco-efficient projects (96%) contributing to: *6.8m tonnes of primarily post-consumer waste recycled in 2022 *76% recycled fibres in global production *100% recycled fibres from certified FSC, PEFC or SFI sustainable sources *4% reduction in waste sent to landfill versus 2020 *8% reduction in water intake versus 2020