Paper-Based Beverage Packaging at the Sustainability Crossroads: Rising Demand, Unresolved Recycling and Innovation Challenges

As sustainability momentum builds and major brands accelerate green packaging initiatives, paper-based beverage packaging is being pulled by two forces at once: a fast-growing market opportunity and mounting pressure from low recycling rates and rising innovation expectations.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi break new ground with paper bottles

Demand for paper-based beverage packaging climbs

At the end of last year, Break Free From Plastic, an international environmental organization, issued a report. After sorting the plastic waste it collected, the group ranked the world's top ten polluters for 2020. Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nestlé took the top three spots. As all three are major beverage producers, plastic pollution in the beverage sector has attracted worldwide attention.

To move beyond the major plastic polluter label, Coca-Cola and Pepsi have announced this year, one after the other, that they will work with leading paper bottle manufacturers and sell beverages in paper bottles in the future, cutting their plastic use.

For a company of the scale of Coca-Cola or Pepsi, using 100% paper packaging across its products would send a powerful demonstration signal to the entire consumer goods industry.

The market has responded accordingly: paper-based beverage packaging has drawn strong attention and created robust demand. A growing number of brands are testing paper-based packaging as a replacement for conventional plastic packaging to reduce plastic consumption.

The paper-based beverage packaging sector still faces multiple challenges

With China's new plastic restriction order introduced in early 2020, the paper-based packaging industry has gained fresh development opportunities while also encountering new challenges.

Paper-based beverage packaging is currently used mainly for milk, yogurt and similar products. Although beverage manufacturers are testing paper-based packaging, the recycling difficulties associated with it cannot be overlooked.

China produces around 60 billion paper-based composite packaging units a year—roughly more than 40 per person annually, or over 3.5 per person per month. At present, the recycling rate for this packaging is about 20%. Recovery sources generally include household consumption and industrial waste, such as offcuts from defective products, mainly packaging discarded as scrap during production and processing.

In addition to recycling, the beverage industry offers a wide range of products with differing performance requirements for paper-based packaging, placing higher innovation demands on the sector.

To serve the beverage industry better, paper-based packaging materials must intensify innovation, develop mature alternatives that match or approach widely used non-degradable plastics in both performance and cost, and launch functional products that meet market needs.

—This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-378359.html