Page 28 - Packaging News Magazine Jan-Feb 21

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SUSTAINABILITY | MATERIALS www.packagingnews.com.au | January-February 2021
High barrier paper alternative to plastics enters Australasia
Paper manufacturer Arjowiggins has launched Sylvicta – a ground-breaking sustainable alternative to plastics in packaging. Paper merchant Spicers is the distribution partner for Sylvicta in Australia, New Zealand, and Asia.
SYLVICTA is a translucent, func- tional barrier paper that has been proven to preserve the quality of food and cosmetics just as well as conventional plastics – all the while ensur- ing limited impact on the envi- ronment. According to manu-
facturer Arjowiggins, the paper is fully recyclable, compostable, marine degradable and made from renewable raw materials.
Sylvicta’s advantage, the company says, is its high barrier to oxygen – the leading cause of food spoilage – which means it can reduce food waste by prolonging shelf life during the transportation, retail, and con- sumer phases of the value chain.
Through precision fibre refining, Arjowiggins’ R&D teams have devel- oped this translucent paper with a natural bonding without the need of
any harmful chemicals. The result, according to the company, is a paper with a barrier to oxygen, aroma, min- eral oils, and fatty foodstuffs.
When running through conven- tional converting lines, Sylvicta offers many creative possibilities: it can be foil-stamped; glued; embossed; printed in offset, gravure, and flexog- raphy; metallised; or coated with heat or cold-sealable materials.
Additionally, Arjowiggins says it is working with packaging converters to open an endless array of applica- tions – from pouches for dry fruits, bags for salads, sachets for solid soap, sacks for pet food and flow-packs for chocolate bars, all the way through to metallised versions of Sylvicta for butter or margarine packaging.
Answering the market’s need for sustainable alternatives to single-use packaging and flexible laminates,
ABOVE: Sylvicta is a translucent, paper-based alternative to flexible plastic laminates.
BELOW: The new material’s high barrier properties can help reduce food waste.
Sylvicta presents a high-quality bar- rier packaging solution for brands that enables them to reduce or even eradicate the use of plastics in their packaging. As such, it’s an attractive solution for creating a globally sus- tainable, circular economy – espe- cially because it can integrate into existing recycling schemes.
Spicers general manager – supply chain and product segments Ken Booth said, “With Sylvicta, the major- ity of your current plastic or foil pack- aging needs can be turned into an environmentally friendly, fully recy- clable, compostable and biodegrad- able paper-based packaging solution.
“Despite the ongoing global move- ment towards more sustainable pack- aging solutions, plastics still make up a significant proportion of the mar- ket, largely for practical reasons,” Booth said.
“Until now, most of the existing offer, mainly in single-use packaging, use unrecyclable, multi-layered lam- inates incorporating plastics or alu- minium foil.”
Sylvicta benefits from the envi- ronmental standards set by Arjowiggins’ Translucent Papers business. Like all of its products, Sylvicta is FSC and PEFC-certified, produced on a site that’s ISO 14001-compliant, and is carbon-off- set through the World Land Trust’s Carbon Balanced programme. ■