Essity to close tissue manufacturing operations in New York state (lesprom.com)

WestRock Company announced today a planned investment in its Florence, South Carolina kraft linerboard mill that will significantly increase the mill’s efficiency, quality and service levels. The $410 million investment over two years will include installing a 330” state-of-the-art kraft linerboard machine and related infrastructure that will replace three older, narrow-width paper machines. The company expects the new machine to produce 710,000 tons of kraft linerboard annually. In addition, the company plans to invest approximately $60 million over the next five years to support the new machine and other mill projects. When coupled with the recently completed modern woodyard, the Florence mill will become one of the lowest cost kraft linerboard mills in North America. Click Read More below for additional information.

Inteplast Group’s BOPP Films and Engineered Films (IEF) have developed a film portfolio of recyclable, mono-material flexible packaging featuring cutting edge biaxially oriented polyethylene (BOPE) films and low seal initiation temperature (SIT) sealant webs. The portfolio will be exhibited at this September’s Pack Expo in Las Vegas. When used in tandem, these BOPE films and low-SIT sealant webs support the industry-wide shift toward flexible packaging that is recycle-ready and circular economy friendly. Potential applications include stand-up pouches, fresh-cut produce packaging, cold-seal packaging, and vertical and horizontal form, fill and seal.

Mondi commissioned a life cycle assessment (LCA) comparing its new ground-breaking paper pallet wrapping innovation, Advantage StretchWrap, with conventional plastic stretch film wrapping. The full study was conducted by an external consultancy, is ISO-compliant and includes an external critical review. Based on the assumption that both materials are recycled at the end-of-life, the findings showed that the paper-based pallet wrapping by Mondi has a lower climate impact as one of the LCA indicators. The basis of comparison is the potential environmental impacts arising from wrapping one pallet. The LCA examined 16 indicators to understand potential trade-offs between the two materials. It covers all relevant life cycle stages, from raw material extraction, production, up to the application on a pallet at the customer. In addition, the impact of the end-of-life stage is assessed. The LCA found that Advantage StretchWrap has 62% lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions when compared to virgin plastic stretch film, and 49% lower GHG emissions when compared to plastic stretch film made with 50% recycled content. Advantage StretchWrap has a lower environmental impact than plastic in a number of categories including climate change and fossil resource use. The plastic stretch film did perform better in some indicators, such as land use and freshwater eutrophication.