Packaging Materials: What Goes Around, Comes Around

by

Environmentally friendly, recyclable packaging to foster a “circular economy” is slowly making inroads in the tobacco sector. But there is still a long way to go.

By Thomas Schmid

With “eco” and “low carbon footprint” having become buzz words in many countries, numerous industry sectors – including food, beverages, electronics, and consumer products – are switching to using recyclable, biodegradable, industrially compostable. However, the UN has highlighted that items labeled as “biodegradable” may actually increase litter as people are more likely to think that it’s acceptable to throw items onto the ground.

The tobacco sector is aware of the global focus on these types of materials and that future legislation is possible.  They are, therefore, watching closely what is happening in all countries before taking considered global action. Overall, every industry is aware of the urgency to address climate change and littering.

Yet, filters are still predominantly made of environmentally harmful acetate tow; cigarette papers mostly are of the bleached variety; and cigarette packaging uses laminated metallic foils. All of that lends the anti-tobacco lobby plenty of ammunition to shower tobacco manufacturers with an endless barrage of accusations, of course. But this doesn’t mean that no initiatives are underway and that the industry isn’t researching alternatives. Far from it, in fact.

“The tobacco industry is engaged in playing their part in reducing their business impact on the environment,” noted Filip Magnus, director of business development at Innovia Films Ltd., one of the leading packaging film suppliers to the tobacco sector. “Many [companies] have signed up to Science-Based Targets, an organization that provides companies with a clearly defined pathway to future-proof growth by specifying how much and how quickly they need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. This pathway allows them to make their contribution to the imminent threat from climate change,” he elaborated.

Magnus also stressed that the industry is fully aware that making claims or gestures that are not fully supported by science are unacceptable and that they will be scrutinized by an increasingly informed consumer. In his opinion, “the accepted best practice for packaging within the industry is to move to a circular economy by reducing, reusing, and recycling packaging materials.” The key is to deploy packaging that not only maintains a high level of functionality but simultaneously also is recyclable in order to achieve a low carbon footprint.

While biodegradables and compostables certainly “have a place [in the industry], they are not the priority route for a target on climate change.” Magnus said, reiterating that instead “a circular economy is the way forward.” For instance, polypropylene (PP), the raw material used in BOPP film, constitutes a highly functional, low-carbon-footprint material that offers a unique combination of properties when used as packaging material, protecting the product it wraps. 

“And it is recyclable. When BOPP film is collected, it can be sorted and mixed into the existing PP recycle stream,” Magnus explained. He insisted there is a need to move to higher barrier packaging to keep tobacco products in pristine condition. “This is because production has become more consolidated, transport routes are longer and new product designs have differing packaging requirements.”

And while the tobacco sector can be somewhat conservative when it comes to adopting or implementing more complex solutions, this is not the case when small changes are concerned. “The fact that recyclables constitute only a small change from normal practices makes them more acceptable [to the industry].

On the other hand, a move to biodegradables or compostables would require a much bigger commitment with a higher financial impact,” Magnus pointed out. To achieve that desired high degree of recyclability it would be imperative for the industry to shift to mono materials instead of continue using composites. Magnus cited the example of the food sector, which has begun focusing on using polyolefin packaging films because they provide for an excellent oxygen and flavor barrier.

“But the tobacco industry’s main requirement is a good water vapor barrier, although we also anticipate tobacco applications where the industry eventually would be interested in good oxygen and flavor barrier properties as well.”

This is where Innovia’s new high-barrier BOPP Propafilm™ Strata film might come in handy. Evaluated by Interseroh, an independent German recycling and consulting company, it has been being awarded a “very good” rating as well as the coveted “Made for Recycling” certification. Interseroh analyzed the packaging film based on a number of material-related criteria together with a veritable phalanx of after-life aspects, such as collection, sorting, recycling, and re-processing. “The certification proves the recyclability of our new Strata BOPP film,” Magnus said. “As it is a mono-structural material, the film performs much better in recycling than composite films and can be added to the PP closed loop and reused,” he said.

However, he also conceded that Strata had been “tested and trialed mainly within the food industry, where it has performed very well.” “If the tobacco industry decided to embark on trials, it is likely going to be for next-generation products… or products requiring a good aroma or oxygen barrier.”

The onus of collecting, recycling, and re-using any type of material can of course not only be laid on manufacturers. “It is everyone’s responsibility, including the end consumers,” confirmed Magnus. “How each individual manages their waste depends on personal accountability and the desire to do their part to improve recycling rates. But it shouldn’t pose an insurmountable problem if an end consumer placed packaging into a recycling bag rather than the waste bin after having unwrapped their tobacco product.” But how about governments, or rather a country’s recycling policies and the facilities provided for that purpose? Not every nation on earth pursues recycling as vigorously as Europe, for example.

Magnus opined that “governments are trying to keep up with the rate of change required and are reviewing their recycling strategies.” Innovia’s focus, he said, was to provide packaging that delivers the high level of functionality that products require as well as the ability to be recycled and meet the target of reducing global warming.

Strata is of course not going to remain a single child. Innovia plans to “continue to expand this family of [recyclable] films, as they integrate well into a circular economy.” The company has just introduced Strata’s “sibling”, Propafilm™ Encore, a fully recyclable, carbon-neutral BOPP film manufactured from renewable raw materials. And starting from its phase two launch projected for 2021, Encore will even contain recycled materials.

“We have for many years actively engaged with our customers in disclosing environmental information on platforms such as CDP, as well as the leading international not-for-profit organization assessing companies’ efforts on climate change, EcoVadis, and are happy to discuss any new initiatives,” Magnus asserted. “Innovia holds an EcoVadis gold rating, which means that we are in the top 3% of all suppliers evaluated in 2017.” The company appears to be on the right track. 

Biodegradable Packaging Not (yet) a Priority

As we have explored in our main article, recyclable materials appear to increasingly become part of tobacco product manufacturers’ “circular economy” efforts. But biodegradables or compostable packaging are not high on the agenda. This, among several other factors, may perhaps have something to do with the fact that packaging suppliers haven’t exhaustively engaged in much tobacco-related development, at least not for the time being.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a project manager at one of the leading global packaging firms divulged to Tobacco Asia, “We are currently working on the sustainability topic, but there’s still a long path of achievement ahead of us.” On the other hand, packaging firms that actually have attempted to introduce such materials came to realize that these fell short of requirements. “A few years ago, we ran client trials with an environmentally-friendly product made from a particular new type of paper blank.

Unfortunately, the feedback was not good in terms of machine speed and stability, even though the final result reached the expected quality,” Vincent Antonellini, a packaging designer and marketing specialist at Italian firm IMA T&T, (the recently re-named GIMA TT) told Tobacco Asia. But, he also appealed to the tobacco sector to vigorously continue pursuing the issue. “In a world where the ‘eco’ theme is growing faster than ever before in many [other] industries, it’d be very important to address that in the tobacco sector as well,” Antonellini said.

Still, another well-known packaging supplier, Futamura (UK), insisted that r&d efforts were already well underway. “There is certainly a great deal of activity [going on] within the tobacco industry in terms of testing compostable materials. These trials are progressing nicely, but we do not believe that we will be in a position to share news this year,” divulged the company’s market development manager, Clare McKeown.

Meanwhile, Austria’s Tannpapier plans to “replace classic foils with biodegradable ones,” although no concrete time frame for that was given.