Smurfit Kappa launches its second Green Bond Report

With a joint investment of approximately EUR 29 million by Stora Enso and Tetra Pak, a new recycling line for post-consumer beverage cartons is starting operations in Poland. Stora Enso has invested approximately EUR 17 million into a new repulping line that will recover the carton fibers, and Tetra Pak along with Plastigram have invested a total of approximately EUR 12 million to build the new line. The line has the potential to triple the annual recycling capacity of beverage cartons in the country - from 25,000 to 75,000 tonnes – and provides scope to absorb the entire volume of beverage cartons sold in Poland, as well as additional volumes from neighbouring countries, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Featuring an annual capacity of 50,000 tonnes, the state-of-the-art line at Stora Enso’s production unit in Ostrołęka (Poland) handles solely beverage carton material separation, detaching fibres from polymers and aluminium. The fibres are then recycled into carton board materials, effectively contributing to material circularity by turning used paper-based packaging into new paper-based packaging materials. This new paper recycling facility is complemented by Czech company Plastigram Industries, that, together with Tetra Pak, is industrialising a solution to recycle polyAl1 into new products.

Carlisle Container Company, a corrugated packaging converter founded in 1965, will significantly decrease turnaround times and boost efficiency with the acquisition of an EFI™ Nozomi 14000 LED single-pass inkjet corrugated packaging press from Electronics For Imaging, Inc. The business will install the new press in a facility adjacent to its main plant scheduled to open in early 2023. The Nozomi 14000 LED press is an important next step toward growth for a packaging company that has long appreciated the impact digital can have. “We implemented digital printing in the early days, acquiring our first VUTEk® printer in 2004,” said Carlisle Container CEO Diane Wolf. “Back then, we could print eight to ten 4x8-foot sheets per hour, and over time we updated technology to continue increasing throughput and quality. The Nozomi was the next logical move for us, and it will be a game changer.”

Metsä Board announced on 15 September 2022 that it will start pre-engineering for a new folding boxboard mill in Kaskinen, Finland. The pre-engineering has now been completed and Metsä Board has decided not to proceed with the investment in the Kaskinen folding boxboard mill. The total cost of the planned investment was significantly higher than originally estimated, meaning that the targets for payback time and return on capital employed would not have been met. Metsä Board has decided to launch programmes for new product options as well as growth and development investments at its existing mills in order to implement its strategy to grow in fibre-based packaging materials and renew its industrial operations. The programmes will support Metsä Board's target of fossil-free production by the end of 2030. In addition, the company will continue to develop packaging solutions that reduce the use of plastics.