Page 6 - Packaging News magazine March_April 2023

NEWS
In Brief
KM PACKAGING OPENS BUSINESS IN AUSTRALIA Global flexible packaging and lidding films supplier KM Packaging has established a business entity in Australia, its second biggest export market after the United States. KM Packaging has been exporting packaging to Australasia since 1996, and has developed a wide range of sustainable solutions to meet local demand. Running operations on the ground in Australia will be Tammy Spencer, who has been appointed as business unit manager (ANZ), based on the Gold Coast in Queensland.
CLG MAKES $US66M PURCHASE
Close the Loop Group (CLG) has bought Texas-based refurbished electronics business ISP Tek Services for US$66m. The deal will enable the group’s Close the Loop business to focus on resource recovery in the US, while for ISP it will provide a route to expand in overseas markets. Close the Loop has been operating in the US for the past 16 years; just a year ago it expanded its packaging operations in the US market with the formation of Close the Loop Packaging, based in Kentucky, to service customers of the group’s US resource recovery business.
OJIFS BUYS CASSOWARY COAST CARTONS
Oji Fibre Solutions (OjiFS) has purchased Innisfail-based Cassowary Coast Cartons, expanding the fibre-based packaging producer’s reach with a new packaging distribution centre in Far North Queensland. Innisfail will become the third DC for the group’s box ‘Packaging Queensland’ box plant based in Yatala, complementing its existing DCs in Bundaberg and Mareeba.
Big breakthrough in pallet wrap
IN A MAJOR breakthrough for the Australian pallet wrap market, Melbourne-based material science
company Great Wrap has launched the world’s first compostable pal- let wrap manufactured using food waste. Multinational brand owners and large retail groups both here and in the USA have snapped up trial batches.
With commercial trials com- pleted, the company’s 10,000sqm Tullamarine site, will soon house the largest stretch wrap manufac- turing facility in the country. The plant, equipped with a state-of- the art cast extruding line for the film, is currently running at 5000T capacity. By year end, the company confirms, capacity will have reached 10,000T, and 20,000T by 2025.
The food waste used for the wrap, derived from potatoes and sourced from two of the country’s biggest potato producers, is cur- rently not processed on site. The next important step, Great Wrap co-founder Julia Kay told PKN, will be to get the biorefinery run- ning on site, and also to scale up
an end-of-life collection service for the pallet wrap to create a fully circular solution.
Kay confirmed the plan is to open the biorefinery by 2025 to convert local potato waste into 20,000 tonnes of PHA. PHA is a marine-degradable material made from microorganisms metabolis- ing potato waste.
Great Wrap’s stretch wrap is certified home compostable, and according to the company, when it is composted and returned to soil it can decrease Australia’s carbon footprint by over 100,000 tonnes every year by lowering our depen- dence on fossil fuels.
Bringing this stretch wrap capacity onshore in Australia will significantly reduce the amount of stretch wrap material imported.
Jordy Kay, co-founder of Great Wrap, said, “We’ve completed commercial trials with major Australian retailers, food and beverage manufacturers and household name brands, and their feedback is consistent – Great Wrap performs as well as
Above: Great Wrap founders Jordy and Julia Kay.
petroleum-based pallet wrap. We’re calling on all Australian business owners to switch because the high- quality product means the only shift is where they purchase it.”
With encouraging levels of inter- est in its stretch wrap from major US retailers, Great Wrap also has its sights set on the US market. In 2022, it launched its direct-to- consumer line in the US.
“We would have to set up a manufacturing facility in the US to service this market,” Julia Kay said, noting that the lead time on the manufacturing equipment is at least 12 months, so the time line is beyond 2024. ■
The facility has not resumed operation. The shut down is impacting the company’s ability to supply packaging converters with their regular volumes, and in some instances, as PKN under- stands from industry sources, polyethylene demand will need to be supplemented from overseas suppliers.
PKN spoke to Aleks Lajovic, managing director of plas- tic tube manufacturer Impact International, which depends on Qenos for its supply of low-den- sity polyethylene raw material. He said, “Impact International always purchases Australian-made when we can and Qenos plays an impor- tant role in our supply chain. We were relieved to hear that nobody was hurt and look forward to Qenos returning to full opera- tional status soon.” ■
Qenos plant shut down impacts PE supply
ARECENT INCIDENT AT Qenos’ Botany, NSW Olefines facility has halted operations at the facil- ity with repercussions down the supply chain for packaging manu- facturers using polyethylene (PE).
On 28 February, at around 6.15am, a length of cooling water pipe failed at the Qenos Olefines plant in Botany. In a media state- ment issued on the day, the company confirmed no one was injured, and that the plant had been shut down safely in line with Qenos’ pre-planned proce- dures. The process to shut down the plant resulted in controlled elevated flaring at the site.
Fire & Rescue NSW, Police and NSW EPA were called to the site along with SafeWork NSW. The failure of the cooling water pipe caused external damage to the cooling water tower with debris located on the Qenos property boundary.
Qenos worked with these authorities and regulators to ensure that all appropriate steps were taken to minimise the impact on local communities.
The company said the extent of the damage will need to be assessed, and the cause of the incident will be the subject of a thorough investigation.
6 ❙ MARCH – APRIL 2023
WWW.PACKAGINGNEWS.COM.AU