Making lighter packaging and cutting raw material consumption means less material is needed.
Finland's packaging material manufacturers are competing to develop more environmentally friendly packaging solutions. One well-known item ripe for slimming down is the decidedly bulky package inserts required for medicines. In Mikkeli, in eastern Finland, sits St. Michel Print, a company specialising in printing Bibles, and it promises to reduce the weight of paper inserts by more than 40%.
“The Bible paper we use is 33-34 micrometres thick, whereas traditionally used paper is around 65 micrometres thick,” says Ossi Riekkinen (Ossi Riekkinen), head of sales at St. Michel Print BD. (A micrometre is a unit of length used in science and technology; it is one millionth of a metre (0.000001 m).)
A commendation from the USA
Package inserts printed on Bible paper recently won recognition in the USA: at Pack Expo International, the world's largest packaging exhibition, they were chosen as finalists for the 2024 Technology Excellence Award. St. Michel Print's representatives are confident about the strong commercial potential of the packaging materials the company produces.
St. Michel Print's picture shows four package inserts printed on 50 g/m2 paper. The left-hand side of the picture shows the thin Bible paper booklet made by the company, printed on Bible paper (29 g/m2). According to Ossi Riekkinen, the total printed area of the four package inserts is equal to that of the Bible paper booklet.
According to Ossi Riekkinen, more detailed information about the market for package inserts is not available, but he points out that, alongside medicines, consumers are also sold other goods (from furniture to wristwatches) that come with printed booklets, such as instructions for use or assembly.
“The medicines market alone is enormous. Anything from several tens of millions to hundreds of millions of units of medicine are sold each year, and that is for a single medicine. If you add in products classified as food supplements, such as vitamin D, the size of the market is obvious. You can only say that it is vast,” Riekkinen notes.
St. Michel Print is one of Europe's leading printing houses specialising in the use of Bible paper. The company has a history stretching back more than 130 years. For the past 40 years it has concentrated on the use of Bible paper. The Bibles for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris were also printed in Mikkeli.
In recent years, developing more environmentally friendly materials has become hugely important in the packaging industry
Last October, Metsä Board announced a new microfibre packaging solution that requires less material than before. The flute size of microfibre board is considerably smaller than that of ordinary corrugated board. The new packaging is up to 50% lighter than other comparable products.
The Trayforma BarrPeel material offered by Stora Enso is a more environmentally sustainable solution for vacuum packaging. The material is made from renewable board with a thin, easily peelable polymer coating. More than 90% of the material consists of renewable wood fibre.
UPM and its partners have an environmentally friendly aim too: they have developed fibre-based packaging that needs no plastic insert for wrapping frozen bread. Made from renewable and recyclable material, this innovation reduces the use of fossil-based packaging materials, as a separate plastic insert is no longer needed.
https://forest.fi/article/one-image-reveals-an-astounding-difference/