DS Smith Plastics—a division of DS Smith Plc—announced the appointment of Wayne Johnson as the Managing Director of Rapak Asia Pacific. In this capacity, he will be responsible for the Rapak business in the region with operations in Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand.

Wayne is very enthusiastic about joining the Rapak business and returning with his family home to New Zealand.

"I am pleased to announce that we have appointed Wayne Johnson into the Rapak Asia Pacific Managing Director role, reporting to me. He will be responsible for driving the day to day operational performance of the business in Asia Pacific in order to achieve our business goals through the delivery of exceptional customer service, new product and business development and operational excellence" Kevin Grogan, CEO has said.

 Prior to joining Rapak, Johnson held the General Manager position in Henkel Australia and New Zealand for six years. Before that, Johnson held senior leadership and sales roles at Villa Maria Wines, the Wrigley Company and Lion Nathan. Wayne has vast knowledge regarding wine, dairy, and beverage markets in Australasia. He is very excited to bring his background and insights to the growing flexible packaging business.

Smurfit Kappa has announced the winners of its first ever Better Planet Packaging Design Challenge.

The competition, which attracted over 300 entries, was part of the company’s drive to provide a collaborative platform to solve one of the biggest challenges in the packaging industry – to reduce the amount of non-recyclable waste that is generated every day.

The first challenge was to develop an alternative for the plastic stretch wrap which is used around pallets to provide stability during transport and storage.

The winner of this challenge was Eric Haas, a freelance product and packaging designer from Germany. Eric came up with a clever idea for a net-like structure, made from paper, that would secure pallet loads of different shapes and sizes. Additional benefits are the flexibility and possibility to re-use the net rather than being immediately discarded like the plastic stretch wrap.

Speaking about his winning design, Eric said: “I loved the sustainability focus of the challenge. It was an iterative process of innovation and I was delighted to find out that my idea has won the top prize.

“I’m excited about the potential that my submission has and am looking forward to seeing it being developed.”

The second challenge was to develop a fully paper-based parcel with thermal protection for chocolates, for use in the eCommerce sales channel.

The winner of this challenge was Kerstin Fischbacher, a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Kerstin, who is from Austria, put forward an innovative idea for a thermal insulation product made from paper pulp which is formed in a similar fashion to expanded polystyrene (EPS). Although the product has many similarities with EPS regarding its thermal insulation properties, it is fully recyclable in existing paper recycling system and biodegradable.

Speaking about her winning submission, Kerstin said: “This is very exciting for me and the first time that I have got confirmation that all the work and research I do in my spare time has the chance to really make a difference.

“Thank you so much for this wonderful feeling and opening up the possibilities to develop this idea further!”

Both Eric and Kerstin are the proud recipients of an €8,000 prize fund each. Smurfit Kappa unveiled the winning ideas at its recent Better Planet Packaging innovation event in the Netherlands which brought over 350 customers together to explore the future of sustainable packaging.

Arco Berkenbosch, VP of Innovation and Development, commented: “We got a fantastic response to the competition which caught the imagination of a lot of very talented people both inside and outside the company.

“Both Eric and Kerstin’s ideas stood out for the versatility and innovation they offered. We plan to cooperate with both innovators to develop their winning ideas further. We are excited about taking each of them to the next level and adding them to our Better Planet Packaging product portfolio.”

Smurfit Kappa has assigned two Project Teams to explore the full potential of each winning idea. The Better Planet Packaging initiative is at the heart of Smurfit Kappa’s core business strategy.

Smurfit Kappa plc announced a trading update for the 3 months ending 31 March 2019

The project collaboratively advances a circular economy in Vietnam through the development of roads made with recycled plastic while developing better end markets for plastic waste.

Dow and DEEP C signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to build the first road using recycled plastics at the DEEP C Industrial Complex in Haiphong City in Vietnam. The project aims to divert post-use flexible packaging from becoming litter or entering a landfill, while also creating more durable, longer-lasting roads.

A first 1-kilometer segment, to be completed in September 2019, will divert nearly 4 metric tons of flexible packaging – the equivalent of roughly one million pieces of flexible wrappers – which will be supplied by Dow customers in the surrounding areas. Upon completion, the new road will be tested by the Vietnam Maritime University prior to expanding the project throughout the complex.

“Dow has a strong commitment to ending plastic waste, in part by finding innovative ways to transform plastic waste into new products,” said Mr. Ekkasit Lakkananithiphan, general director of Dow Vietnam. “We developed more than 90 kilometers of asphalt roads containing plastic waste in India, Indonesia, Thailand and the US which provides us with foundational knowledge that we can apply for this project in Vietnam.”

Advancing a circular economy was identified as one of Dow’s 2025 Sustainability Goals in 2015. Roads developed with recycled plastic demonstrates that plastic waste can be a valuable renewable resource and contribute toward a plastics circular economy. The plastic waste used in the project is mostly post-consumer flexible packaging, such as polyethylene film. After cleaning, drying and shredding the material, the plastic is mixed with the asphalt at a temperature around 150-180 degrees Celsius. At this temperature, the plastic is completely melted and bonded with asphalt resulting in longer lasting, more durable roads. Roads enhanced with recycled plastics also have the potential to lower greenhouse gas emissions by replacing part of the bitumen needed in the asphalt.

“DEEP C pioneers in building and converting industrial zones into eco-industrial parks,” said Mr. Do Quang Hung, first deputy general director of DEEP C HP I & III/Dinh Vu Industrial Zone JSC. “One of the main goals under the eco-park initiative is promoting industrial symbiosis to mitigate and decrease industrial waste.”

The project will engage local governments, waste collectors and the plastic industry value chain to tackle the marine debris and plastic waste issue in Vietnam and to develop better end markets for plastic waste. This cross-industry collaboration shows the commitments each organization has to advancing a circular economy and reducing the amount of waste in the environment.

“Circular economy has been known as a solution for an eco-friendly, durable and sustainable prosperity,” said Mr. Nguyen Quang Vinh, secretary general of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry cum vice-chairman of the Vietnam Business Council for Sustainable Development (VCCI-VBCSD). “As it is one among our priorities to realize the Sustainable Development Goals at VCCI-VBCSD, we highly appreciate this initiative of Dow as a strong contribution in reducing plastic waste and furthermore, in transforming the urban mobility in Vietnam.”

Vietnam is currently one of the top producers of plastic waste with urban areas like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City seeing an estimated 80 metric tons of plastic waste entering the environment as litter every day.

Wrapping rectangular or round sandwichcookies and cookies has now become much easier: Hastamat presents its new Vertical Multilane Wrapper VMW. From 4th to 10th May 2017 the company based in Lahnau, Hesse will present its latest innovation in Hall 15/A41 at interpack, the leading trade fair for processes and packaging.

The revolutionary machine concept of the VMW brings together a grouping unit for small piece goods and a vertical wrapping process. "The machine combines the advantages of a horizontal packaging machine with those of a vertical one", explains Olaf Piepenbrock, executive partner of the Piepenbrock Group, Hastamat's parent company. "With two different loading positions it is possible to pack products upright standing (on edge) or one above the other (on pile) on the same machine." This is achieved by a completely new grouping module. The packaging format can be changed in less than five minutes, thus allowing the VMW to produce different packaging sizes.

Award-wining efficiency and product handling "One of the machine's key advantages is its space-saving, compact design, which enables it to be used in production sites with limited space", states Mr. Piepenbrock. With its clear modular design and flexible, scalable versions, the VMW also impresses by being able to operate several lanes in parallel. This translates into the machine being able to pack up to 500 cookies per lane with a packaging material saving of up to 22%. The system can be optionally expanded up to a total packaging output of up to 12,000 products per minute. A further advantage of the new development: the Vertical Multilane Wrapper packs sandwich products non-cooled, thus saving the procurement and operating costs for a cooling tunnel. The packaging 2/3 machine handles the product with the utmost care to ensure the often fragile cookies are not damaged. "Nonetheless, the packaging still lies close to the product. With no format tube, the product is fed in on a patented conveying system and packed with no product back-up", says Mr. Piepenbrock. The VMW processes both heat sealable and cold sealable films. A host of patented detail solutions that are integrated in the machine emphasise the innovative machine concept. The efficiency and technical know-how of the innovative packaging solution from Hastamat also convinced the jurors of the Deutschen Verpackungsinstitut (DVI) (German Packaging Institute) who presented the machine with the German Packaging Award in the "Engineering and Technology" category.

The Holmen Group’s paperboard manufacturer, Iggesund Paperboard, has received the highest rating for sustainability in an evaluation done this year by the rating firm EcoVadis. The paperboard is produced at Iggesund Mill in Sweden and at Workington, England. EcoVadis is the leading system for assessing and rating the suppliers of global companies and has done more than 45,000 evaluations in 150 countries. Companies using EcoVadis include Coca Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Nestlé, L’Oréal and Heineken.

“This is one of many confirmations that Iggesund Paperboard and its parent company, the Holmen Group, have a very strong sustainability programme,” comments Johan Granås, Sustainability Communications Manager at Iggesund. “The issues have shifted over time from being purely environmental ones to now encompassing the entire field of sustainability.”

Both Iggesund Mill and its sister mill at Workington have received the highest rating, the Gold Standard. They are both thereby among the top one percent of all the companies assessed by EcoVadis and are among the two top percent of the assessed companies in the paper industry.

Over the last ten-year period, the Holmen Group has appeared on indexes of the world’s 100 most sustainable companies, drawn up by both the UN’s Global Compact and the Corporate Knights. The Group has also been repeatedly named by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) as a leader in the work against climate change.

“It’s becoming more and more important to be able to document your sustainability work so that customers know where we stand in this regard,” Granås adds. “That’s where EcoVadis and similar systems come in. They are a major advance in simplifying the exchange of information between customers and suppliers.”

At Iggesund Paperboard, sustainability issues have been a key focus for decades, and, for example, are always included in discussions about possible investments.

“It’s easy to point to business deals where our sustainability position was a decisive factor, and the importance of these issues will only increase in future,” says Granås.

First-class sustainability work is an important prerequisite for being able to do business with major brand owners, who today are often leading the shift towards a more sustainable society.

“We believe that our customers, the brand owners and we ourselves are all winners in this trend towards greater openness,” Granås emphasises. “And, of course, it’s very gratifying to see that we’re already ranked so highly today.”

Iggesund’s sustainability has yet another dimension: how its paperboard material is used. The types of paperboard made at the mill have a very low environmental impact, and if they are used to replace plastic packaging, the climate effects are even greater.

“When this type of material replacement is added to the equation, companies can achieve a dramatic reduction of their climate impact by using our material. These effects are not included in the EcoVadis assessments but they are also an important part of the battle against the greenhouse effect,” concludes Johan Granås.

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