Page 17 - Packaging News magazine Jan-Feb 2022

January-February 2022 | www.packagingnews.com.au | COVER STORY
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packaging design
pallet, increasing transport efficiency,” Thomassen explains. “More products on pallets leads to fewer pallets being moved around, and less trucks on the roads to move the pallets. All of this adds to the wider sustainability work at Ego, such as our complete overhaul of our HVAC system, and water and energy reduction projects.”
The etchðos bottles are filled at Ego’s production plant in Braeside on its Serac filling line. And once filled, akin to other Ego products, the bottles are shipped to the market in cardboard outers from Echo Cartons using 60 per cent recycled cardboard.
BREAKING NEW GROUND
With the design brief in hand, in March 2020 the Ego team pre- sented bottle design concepts for the etchðos brand launch to packaging supplier Pact Packaging, a division of Pact Group.
As any packaging technologist worth their salt will know, when incorporating recycled content in packaging, there are structural and aesthetic factors to be considered. The aim in this case was to achieve 50 per cent PCR content, using food grade rHDPE sourced primarily from kerbside collection of milk bottles and food containers in Australia.
Jane Westney, marketing manager at Pact, picks up the story: “From the orig- inal design Ego briefed to Pact, we were
able to lightweight the 300ml bottle by over 20 per cent, by drawing on all our technical resources. With polymer scientists, hard-wired technical engi- neers, and operational know-how, we managed to deliver Ego the bottle they asked for but at a much lighter weight.”
The bottle is produced via extrusion blow moulding. While this is not a new technology for this packaging format, the challenge lay in combining 50 per cent recycled resin with virgin resin while maintaining product integrity.
Pact Packaging invested in new blending equipment for virgin and recycled resin, and new extrusion tooling at its Dandenong South, Victoria site.
Colour matching was also an impor- tant consideration for 50 per cent rHDPE, especially in the skin care category where packaging aesthetics on shelf count.
“Recycled resin has a slight ‘tint’ as it is not as ‘pure’ as virgin resin. To achieve the white colour Ego requested the process required mul- tiple trials of different levels of masterbatch to achieve the desired result,” Westney explains.
From concept to commercialisation, the project has taken 19 months, with the bottle now in full production at Pact Packaging’s Dandenong South, Victoria site.
“We were breaking new ground here, with the inclusion of recycled
BELOW LEFT: The etchðos bottles are filled at Ego’s production plant in Braeside on its Serac filling line.
BELOW RIGHT: The flat design improves space utilisation on a pallet, increasing transport efficiency.
We were breaking new ground here, with the inclusion of recycled resin, new lightest-weight bottle designs, and matching to colour.” — Jane Westney, Pact Group
resin, new lightest-weight bottle designs, and matching to colour. We were drawing on multiple experts across the business and consequently, time was probably the biggest invest- ment in trials to achieve the right outcome for Ego,” Westney says.
Ego is the first skin care brand Pact has worked with in the Australian market to include 50 per cent rHDPE in their packaging, according to Westney, who notes that Pact is encouraging other brand owners to start their journey to forge ahead with their packaging obligations to achieve recycled content.
Consumers have demonstrated clear preference for the inclusion of local recycled content in packaging. Pact Group commissioned a study through Quantum to understand con- sumer attitudes towards waste and recycling. It showed that consum- ers want to know that the materials that they place in recycling bins are reprocessed locally and made into new products.
Brand owners are working towards their 2025 National Packaging Targets. While 2025 might seem a while away, as Westney points out, it takes tech- nical expertise, trials, and time to transition to recycled content.
“The time to start working towards them is now,” she stresses.
The team at Ego strongly concur. By taking this step to use recycled content in its packaging, Ego Pharmaceuticals has paved the way for other manufac- turers to follow suit on the important journey towards a circular economy for plastic packaging in Australia. ■