Metsä Board has designed a lighter gift package that still has the strength of rigid box solutions currently used for premium products like cosmetics.
Made from micro fluted corrugated board, the new design presents a gift box solution that uses less material and has a lower carbon footprint than traditional rigid boxes.
Part of Metsä Group, the team at Metsä Board’s Excellence Centre in Äänekoski, Finland, has been working on this product for the past two years.
Micro flute was found to be the best solution due to having a significantly smaller and lower flute size than traditional corrugated board. The packaging design is made of a separate base and lid made of micro flute with the surface liner made from either uncoated white kraftliner of coated white kraftliner – the latter offering the best printing properties.
Whilst cosmetics are said to be the number one application area that will benefit from this design, the company also says it can be customised easily to be used for other premium products such as chocolate and beverages.
Having compared the new micro flute solution to recycled fibre-based rigid box solutions, Metsä Board’s sustainability services team found the new design to be up to 50% lighter.
“Thanks to its lightness, the new packaging solution can help our customers reach their carbon reduction targets,” says Ilkka Harju, Metsä Board’s packaging services director.
“The cradle-to-gate carbon footprint of the new solution – which considers value chain stages from raw materials extraction until the paperboard product leaves the mill – was also calculated and found to be 59% lower than that of traditional solutions.”
Harju adds: “Since no harmful adhesives or other plastic laminates are used in the packaging solution the recycling becomes much more efficient.”