Feb 2 2006
Tetra Pak announced today that it is completing the worldwide roll-out of Wide, a new standard of packaging material for all ambient and roll-fed chilled liquid product packages.
The packaging material has a new innovative inner coating that is stronger and more robust than in the previous packaging material. Even though it is stronger, it is 30 percent thinner and requires fewer polymers to produce. As a result, Tetra Pak will be reducing its global consumption of polymers by 50,000 tons per year, which equates to about 2,500 shipping containers annually. Not only does this reduce the use of nonrenewable resources, it also has a direct and positive impact on the environment in terms of shipping, distribution and energy usage.
The new packaging material is a tangible example of Tetra Pak’s environmental policy to continually improve the environmental performance. Wide reduces the energy consumption by 17% (less gross energy use) and by using less polymers, the percentage of renewable material-paperboard - used in the package is increased by 3.5%. At the same time, the performance of the new packaging material surpasses all expectations:
“We have already produced over 50 billion packages around the globe with Australia, Brazil and Japan leading the way,” explains Günther Lanzinger, Project Director, "and both manufacturers and retailers are reporting better product performance and more cost-efficient operations. For instance, a transportation damage test in Brazil showed zero defects out of 9,000 packages transported on rough roads for 1,200 kilometres.”
By March, the new packaging material will be the de facto standard for carton packages and all Tetra Pak factories around the world will be using it.
The material has been developed exclusively for Tetra Pak as part of its drive for a new generation of better, safer and more environmentally friendly packages. “The introduction of this new packaging material is the result of years of development work, driven by our desire to be innovative yet environmentally responsible throughout our development, production and supply chain”, explains Connie Kristensson, Vice President, Industrialisation and Packaging Manufacturing Technology.