Plastic-free, are you ready?

In packaging industry, plastic has many advantages, such as the light weight, great stability and high flexibility with regard to colors and shapes. Moreover, metallized paperboard normally depends on plastic film to carry its shinning sliver or laser effect.

However, the production of plastic costs massive nature resources and damages lives on earth. More importantly, the amount of plastic used globally has significantly exceeded the limit of how much our planet can bear in recent years.  

According to the research done by OECD, there are 353 million tons of plastic waste produced globally in 2019, and only 9% of them are recycled. If this trend of usage continues, in 2060, there will be 1.2 billion tons of plastic waste appearing around the world.

The situation made people consider seriously to expand the application of recyclable and biodegradable materials to more businesses to achieve plastic-free as soon as possible.

Many countries are taking actions to make laws, regulations and plans to limit or even eliminate the usage of plastic material.

Let‘s see some examples:

Other than world’s governments, major global conglomerates are also investing time and resources vastly into "plastic free" movement.   They are optimizing their products’ production and packaging according to the four sustainability principles of  "avoid, reduce, reuse, and recycle". 

In this March and at the Fifth Session of the United Nations Environment Assembly, representatives from more than 200 countries and regions sit together strengthening actions for nature to achieve the sustainable development.

One of the most important agendas was the plastic pollution. All the participating counties and regions agreed to enact a legally forcible agreement no later than 2024, to prevent and remedy plastic pollution.

In the meantime, UN encourages global enterprises to participate the discussion of making this agreement, their insight and investment will be necessary to achieve sustainable development.

Aluminum metallized paperboard is commonly used for packaging boxes in skincare, cosmetics, tobacco, food, small digital device products etc. Its shinning silver or holographic surface makes the package outstanding in appearance.

However, in order to achieve metallic shinning effect, traditional metalized board must have a layer of plastic film attached to its surface, which is not detachable. We call it the “laminated board”. This feature makes the laminated board non-recyclable and non-biodegradable. Furthermore, the plastic film makes laminated board in contradictory with the plastic free trend.

Shunho Creative’s “TransMet®” as a neo-generation of metallized paperboard, could provide the same visual effect as the laminated board without plastic film attached. Therefore, packages made by TransMet® board will be plastic free, which makes it recyclable and biodegradable. It is without question, TransMet® board is an ideal choice to be both nice looking and environmental friendly.

In fact, Tobacco industry is the pioneer in global plastic free movement. Many companies such as BAT, JTI, KTNG and others have already applied TransMet® board to their packages for many years.

In recent years, giants from FMCG industries are keeping up, such as GSK, Estee Lauder, Johnson & Johnson, Colgate are gradually substituting their box material from laminated board to non-plastic board.

Nowadays, the tide of Plastic Free trend is unstoppable, and its impacts are spreading fast. Shunho Creative are working with more customers from a wider range of industries, developing plastic-free packaging solutions. We believe that one-day TransMet® board in the market will entirely replace laminated board.

Let’s work together to make one more step closer to a plastic-free world.