Constantia Flexibles and Plasthill reduce packaging weight for more sustainability

Constantia Flexibles and Plasthill Technical Films, a company of the Dutch Oerlemans Packaging Group, have struck up a partnership to bring Constantia Flexibles’ proprietary technology, CompresSeal, to the market in Europe.

The CompresSeal film has higher seal integrity than standard polyethylene films and weighs up to 30% less, according to the company. It will be available to the first customers in selected markets from August 2022 onwards.

Pim Vervaat, CEO of Constantia Flexibles said the technology behind the CompresSeal film is the result of years of research and development by experts.

“Together with Plasthill’s leading embossing capabilities, we take this forward-looking packaging solution to the next level and offer it to customers in a broad variety of packaging applications,” he said.

The CompresSeal technology consists of a novel and special micro embossing technology. Its embossing pattern allows reducing the grammage of polyolefinic sealant films by up to 30% while still having the same thickness as standard packaging. The carbon footprint of a given packaging specification can be reduced also.

The technology reduces the issues associated with migrating slip agents usually used in the PE and PP film industry. Fewer additives can be used and the coefficient of friction on the packaging line remains constant, independent of environmental conditions, such as temperature and humidity. This also results in higher production speeds. The packaging solution is particularly suitable to be used in flow packs for washing detergents, dry pet food, coffee, nuts, savoury foods, as well as stand-up pouches for liquids.

At first, the focus will be on polyethylene sealants in thicknesses above 60 grams per square meter, where weight-saving has the most significant environmental impact.

Sander Kool, managing director at Plasthill Technical Films, said: “Our proposition is ‘The sustainable innovator’ and producing these new films is entirely in line with our Rethink Plastics strategy. The cooperation and teamwork with Constantia Flexibles turned out to be wonderful!“

Related content