“It is important to us to reduce our impact on the environment where possible,” said Katie Camlin, Digital and Social Media Coordinator at Kansas City Bier Company. “Glass bottles are both reusable and recyclable, and working with Ardagh, a domestic manufacturer, reduces shipping distances greatly.”

In 2021, Kansas City Bier filled more than 2.6 million glass beer bottles, supplying fresh, local, German-style lagers and ales throughout Missouri and Kansas.

“Ardagh Glass Packaging enjoys partnering with craft brewers like Kansas City Bier that have a passion for glass bottles and sustainable practices,” said Clint Gawart, Vice President, Beer & Beverage for AGP – North America. “We’ve supplied the brewery for the past four years and are elated they continue to package all of their products in 12oz glass bottles designed and manufactured by Ardagh.”

Equally important as packaging the brewery’s beer in sustainable glass bottles is the ability to endlessly recycle those bottles, turning them into new bottles. Through the brewery’s partnership with Ripple Glass, a glass recycling provider for the Kansas City area and mid-America region, the glass bottles are recycled into new bottles without any loss in quality or purity. Last year, Kansas City Bier diverted 25,515 pounds, or 12.75 tons, from the landfill by recycling glass bottles in the famous purple bins provided by Ripple Glass.

Recycling plays a key role in both AGP – North America’s and Kansas City Bier’s sustainability initiatives. Recycling glass containers not only keeps glass out of the landfills while giving it the new life it deserves, but it has significant environmental benefits by saving raw materials, lessening demand for energy and cutting CO2 emissions. Glass recycling is a great way to close the loop, protect the environment and support area businesses.

Throughout 2022, Ardagh Glass Packaging will celebrate the United Nations International Year of Glass (IYOG), commemorating the essential role of glass packaging in a sustainable society. In this IYOG, AGP – North America is focused on celebrating customers like Kansas City Bier and its use of sustainable, recyclable glass beer bottles, to celebrate the important role of glass packaging in today’s world.

A player committed to the circular economy and a major supplier of sustainable and recyclable packaging solutions; DS Smith France has collaborated with the Carrefour distributor to produce 3 large-format cardboard toys. Manufactured in 200,000 copies, they will be distributed from March 28 in all Carrefour brands (hypermarkets, supermarkets, and convenience stores) throughout France, as well as on Carrefour.fr.

Cardboard toys “made in France” for the whole family
Produced locally at the DS Smith plant in Seine-Maritime, this range of eco-responsible toys will be sold at the attractive price of €10 each throughout the Carrefour network, in France. Boat, house, or cardboard rocket, young and old will enjoy painting and coloring these XXL toys. By personalizing their toy in this way, they will be able to express their imagination and creativity.

A project that combines circular economy and social action
This line of XXL toys offers consumers a sustainable alternative to non-recyclable toys. Cardboard toys come from the recycling of used and recovered packaging, such as that from Carrefour stores. The latter constitutes the raw material necessary for the manufacture of recycled paper, then for the production of new 100% recyclable packaging.

This project also has an important social dimension since the packing of the toys has been entrusted to people with disabilities. This new range of toys thus responds to the growing demand for ever more responsible and sustainable consumption.

Ambitious sustainability goals
DS Smith undertakes:

by 2023, to manufacture 100% reusable or recyclable packaging,
by 2025, remove 1 billion single-use plastic items from supermarket shelves,
by 2025, to optimize the use of fiber for each supply chain in 100% of its new packaging solutions,
And by 2030, reduce its CO2 emissions by 30% compared to the reference values ​​of 2015 to reach zero net emissions in 2050.
Accelerating the transition to a circular and regenerative economy
In addition, DS Smith recently launched the “Circular Design Metrics”, an innovative new tool to analyze and compare the performance of packaging in terms of circularity. Finally, the Group also announced that it would invest 115 million euros over 5 years in its new R&D and innovation program to accelerate its efforts in favor of the circular economy.

The new film is suitable for twist and fold wrapping when small to medium runs are individualized, in high quality, and with fast delivery times. The film can be printed on-site before packaging and processed directly in-line, saving resources and enabling new distribution concepts.

The Artysio Twist film provides reliable protection from light, air and dirt for sweets, chocolates, and other confectionery. The white film can be printed individually using AQ inkjet to offer a great look and presentation. The film is made from renewable raw materials and is industrially compostable.

Shiseido first revealed the news of its new brand, Ulé, a couple of weeks ago—and here are more details about the innovative eco-conscious skincare brand. 

Ulé has a mission to promote botanical, conscious beauty—and is the first skincare brand to grow its ingredients in its own indoor high-tech vertical farm. 

The Ulé Eco-Farm, near Paris, ensures the purity of the brand's ingredients, ensuring its supply chain is as short as possible. "It is an agricultural and technological breakthrough in eco-responsibility, efficiency and safety, the brand states—and the technology also allows for full traceability of the plants."

The farm was created in partnership with Tower Farm, a company driven to develop an urban agriculture model through responsible local production, indoors, according to Ule Beauty's website. 

Lindsay Azpitarte, the creator of the brand, has worked at Shiseido for ten years and began the development of Ulé in 2019, with Shiseido Group’s support. She serves as Shiseido's vice president of new brand development. 

“We are the first skincare brand to create the future of botanical beauty powered by vertical farming," says Azpitarte. "Here in France, we cultivate and extract ultra-potent whole plants from around the world at our proprietary Ulé Eco-Farm. This allows us to maintain the shortest supply chain possible and lessen our environmental impact while ensuring the freshness of our plants,” she explains.

Eco-Friendly Packaging 
Ulé's formulas and packaging are made in France, and the brand minimizes its packaging's environmental impact. Bottles and jars are ultra-light and paired with bio-based lids, which biodegrade without leaving permanent microplastics behind.

The caps are made of wood chips from industrial side streams and plant-based binders. The texture of this composite reveals the fibers embedded within it. The unique material was developed by the Finnish innovation startup Sulapac.

All eight of Ule's products, consisting of serums, mists and creams, have lids made with Sulapac materials. The launch of Ulé marks the largest product range to date using Sulapac’s solutions.

“Ulé has also utilized the Sulapac Barrier innovation. It is the world’s first material for water-based products that biodegrades without leaving permanent microplastics behind,” explains Dr. Suvi Haimi, CEO and co-founder of Sulapac.

The Ulé' collection launched on May 2nd online, but only ships within France.

A pioneer in industrial tapes and die cuts, Ajit Industries has unveiled a wide-range of new tapes, made from recyclable and biodegradable materials, which include, among others, Self-Adhesive Kraft Paper Tape, Water Activated Kraft Paper Tape KP 90, Eco-friendly Honeycomb Packaging Paper and Recyclable Bopp Tape.

AIPL Ajit Industries is a name synonymous with quality and service and is a solution provider to almost all the major organizations and brands across India and beyond. The company's key offerings include more than 200 types of industrial tapes and die cut solutions. Started with a vision to be the leader in the category, today Ajit Industries holds a place of pride in the industrial landscape of India. Under the astute leadership of Ajit Gupta, it enjoys the reputation of being a game changer in the industry.

Ajit Gupta, Founder & Managing Director, Ajit Industries Private Limited said, "As a Responsible Corporate, we have been introducing complete eco-friendly solution for taping and packaging business. In line with our core values "Smart Strong Stable", we are bringing out "sustainable" products that set performance benchmarks in the industry and in a bigger purview of things, also work for the environment and hence the greater good of the Society. With a vast global experience of more than 25 year in the self-adhesive tapes industry, we are in the process of achieving deeper consolidation across the markets in India."

Ajit Industries (AIPL) has been actively engaged in running mission green campaign to promote the use of environment-friendly green tapes. With legendary Cricketer Kapil Dev as its Brand Ambassador, AIPL has always been passionate about sustainable solutions for a safer and greener society.

The company believes in qualitative and optimized use of natural resources and has considered itself as responsible Corporate towards the future of the mother earth and generations to follow.

Ajit Industries uses green and biodegradable materials to create its exclusive product range of Green Tapes. Recyclability apart, AIPL also looks into the whole lifecycle of the material. It takes great care to use environment-friendly material to ensure biodegradability from the selection of recycled raw material to the end of life of the material.

Incorporated in the year 1998, Ajit Industries Private Limited (AIPL), is engaged in manufacturing and marketing of various types of Pressure Sensitive Self Adhesive Industrial tapes and Die-Cuts. An IATF 16949:2016 Certified, ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 14001:2015 certified company, it offers a wide range of user-friendly specialty tapes under its own brand-names "AIPL SUNSUI", "AIPL SUPER GOLD", "EZ WONDER" & "EZ PACK". Out of these a significant portion of the specialty products are ornamented with "UL" certification.

Many of the company's products are tested and approved by reputed labs like SGS, Shriram Institute, and ARAI (Automobile Research Association of India). AIPL is rated well as a financial credit rating firm. IATF 16949:2016 Certified is for International Organization for standardization on Quality Management System & ISO 14001 is for Environmental Management System.

AIPL is equipped with a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility having two plants at the same location I.e. at Kharkhoda in District Sonepat, Haryana and the other locations include Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, Chennai and Tamil Nadu.

The saving has been made by switching from the traditional square block shape to oblong packaging and also by removing the current re-sealable zip.

The 260 ton saving will also be achieved by Tesco ditching the plastic trays in which these cheeses are delivered and they will now be sent in a new cardboard shelf-ready format.

New 400g pack sizes are replacing 460g packs and both they and existing 220g packs have had their re-sealable zip removed.

Nearly 40 lines of Tesco’s own brand territorial hard cheeses have been re-formatted.

Peter Wood, Tesco cheese buying manager, said: “This is a revolutionary move for the UK cheese industry because the iconic square shaped cheese packs have been around for decades.

“By changing the pack shape and also removing the re-sealable zip we will be able to reduce plastic packaging on our brand hard cheeses by up to 41% against the former product, depending on the size of the block. Another benefit to customers is that these new chunkier pack sizes are easier to handle so cutting, grating and slicing will be simpler.”

Lines included in the re-packaging move include: Tesco Extra Mature Cheddar 400g, Tesco Red Leicester 400g, Tesco Double Gloucester 400g, Tesco 50% Reduced Fat Mature Cheese 220g, Tesco Welsh Mild Cheddar 220g and eight of Tesco’s Creamfields 400g own brand Cheddar cheeses.