Tetra Pak announced today that it is ready to deploy its portfolio of tethered cap solutions, in a bid to minimise litter.
The company’s tethered caps are also planned to become available as a plant-based option, thereby increasing the renewable content of the package.
In tandem with this announcement, the company is accelerating the expansion of its paper straws offering.
Lars Holmquist, executive vice president for packaging solutions and commercial operations at Tetra Pak, says: “These are key milestones in our journey towards the world’s most sustainable food package: a carton that is fully made from renewable or recycled materials, is fully recyclable and carbon-neutral.
Holmquist continues: "We focus on recycling by design, committing to invest approximately €100 million per year over the next 5-10 years to develop more sustainable packaging solutions. This includes alternatives to replace fossil-based plastics and avoid littering, as well as maximising the use of renewable, responsibly sourced materials in our packages.
“Addressing people’s needs for recycling is a critical component for not only becoming more sustainable but making food more available and safer for all consumers.”
With this in mind, Tetra Pak has accelerated innovation in the caps domain. Holmquist adds: “The significant challenge of deploying tethered caps is the scale of the change that this brings across the value chain. If we look at Europe alone, more than 1,000 packaging lines supplied by us will be potentially transformed, translating into over 20 billion packages which are expected to be converted.”
Tetra Pak is progressing this project by working across various project streams. Overall, this covers approximately 40 different packages with tethered caps, all of which are also set to become available as plant-based options.
The first one to be released on the market is the HeliCap 26 Pro closure. This product features a new screw and flip concept with a self-locking hinge, with the aim of securing food protection while providing convenience for in-home consumption.
Holmquist concludes: “We won’t stop here. We are continuously innovating our sustainable openings offering. We envision a world where carton packages never become waste and where every carton is collected and recycled.”
