BARRIER PAPERS OR PLASTICS? IT’S NOT SO SIMPLE
René Köhler
Victoria Hattersley spoke with René Köhler, Head of Business Development Packaging Solutions at Sappi Europe, to delve into the topic of barrier papers and Sappi’s aim to ensure their wider use as the industry begins to phase out fossil-based materials.
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hen it comes to barrier packaging, the market is looking very different than it did 10 years ago. For years, non-recyclable polyethylene coated, multilayer laminated flexible materials and aluminium have been the main options for packaging perishables. However, the situation has changed. Although they are certainly not in a position to ‘replace’ plastics, we see the introduction of increasingly sophisticated barrier papers each year. But not all barrier papers are equal. To put it bluntly, some are high barrier while some are not so much. How do we sort out the genuinely game-changing solutions from the greenwash? “On the market a lot of people claim they have barrier papers, but what does this really mean? Any paper that contains a layer of another material
can be called a ‘barrier paper’ but that doesn’t mean it fulfils the demands of the market,” says René Köhler. He states that the ultimate aim for Sappi, as a barrier paper specialist, is to substitute aluminium and plastic multilayer laminates and bring in a truly sustainable alternative that meets all market demands in terms of performance. The company has already made strides in this direction, for example with its Sappi Guard Gloss 4-OHG – a one-side coated glossy paper with functional high barrier coating and heat sealability that is suitable for both food and nonfood applications. A common perception within the industry and beyond is that barrier papers can’t be recycled, as they must still contain some kind of polymer-based coating to protect the product. But René stresses that this is not that case – that it is possible to have a paper containing a polymerbased layer that could still be put into existing recycling streams. Part of the problem, as we will see later, is that the recycling infrastructure itself is not set up for this. Sometimes, with such complex topics, it can be useful to come back to a more fundamental question, and so we ask:
What exactly is a plastic? The answer, most of us would say, is pretty simple: plastic is the umbrella term for the wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials on the market today made from an ever-growing range of organic raw materials such as fossil fuels, cellulose, gas, salt and so on. René, however, argues that we need to clarify – or even redefine – the nature of plastics if we are to challenge commonly held beliefs about barrier papers. “If you have a rigid plastic package, then that is a structural plastic and clearly that can’t be placed in the paper recycling stream. But what we are adding to our papers are very thin functional layers of polymers. We believe that you need to distinguish between the two – structural and functional – because with the latter, provided they are engineered in the right way, it Packaging Europe | 13 |
