Ireland – Irish corrugated company, Smurfit Kappa has unveiled its patented Vitop Uno tap with attached tamper protection for the Bag-in-Box market.
The design of the Vitop Uno tap, which is said to be the first such tap in the market, is compliant with the upcoming Single Use Plastics Directive as it does not need the consumer to remove the tamper protection.
Smurfit Kappa said that the tap is deactivated when the product is used for the first time and remains an integral component of the tap without affecting the next use of the Bag-in-Box product.
According to the packaging firm, the latest solution is expected to minimize the chance that the tamper protection plastic will end up in the environment which can happen with removable tamper protection.
Users can separate the box from the bag using the tap and recycle both items in compliance with local recycling laws after their use.
Vitop CEO Didier Pontcharraud said: “We built this tap, with the prospective option of a full transition to mono-material, to be suitable for recycling into the existing flexible polyethylene stream.”
Smurfit said that various tests on the Vitop Uno conducted over the past year in France, Spain, and Sweden have shown that the new tap’s convenience remains unchanged and that consumer purchase intentions are positively impacted by the packaging’s environmental features.
Vitop is a supplier of Bag-in-Box closing solutions, having sold more than six billion taps overall. The Vitop Uno is anticipated to enter industrial production in the second part of this year.
Smurfit Kappa Bag-in-Box CEO Thierry Minaud added: “Bag-in-Box recyclability is one of the most frequent requests from our customers nowadays.
“Our target is to offer the most sustainable solutions that can be recycled on a large scale across different countries in the near future.”
Meanwhile, in its efforts to drive sustainability, the Irish company recently invested US$6.54 million to construct and install solar panels at its Sanguesa paper mill in Spain.
Smurfit Kappa says that solar panels will reduce CO2 emissions by over 3200 tonnes annually and provide significant cost savings.
Once operational, it is estimated that the panels will generate more than 10 GWh of power annually which will reduce the current external electricity consumption and dependency by 7%.
The Spanish solar energy project is the latest for Smurfit Kappa which has launched similar initiatives in other plants in Spain, Colombia and Mexico to generate sustainable energy.
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