Ox Industries Expands Footprint with South Carolina Acquisition

According to its 17th Sustainable Development Report published today, Smurfit Kappa has achieved its targets on: *Waste: achieving a 35.8% reduction in waste sent to landfill, ahead of its 2025 target of 30% (24% in 2022) *Forestry: achieving 95.5% of packaging sold with Chain of Custody certification, ahead of its 2025 target of 95% (94.3% in 2022) *Communities: €25.6 million donated to support social, environmental and community initiatives, ahead of its 2025 target of €24 million (€18.4 million in 2022) *Diversity: 25.1% of management positions were held by women at the end of 2023, ahead of its 2024 target of 25% (23.5% in 2022).

Huhtamaki, a key global provider of sustainable packaging solutions, announces a first-to-market sustainable innovation for the global pharmaceutical and healthcare industry. Huhtamaki's Push Tab® blister lid is mono-material PET and free from aluminum. It is designed to meet the stringent safety requirements of highly regulated pharmaceutical and healthcare packaging and provides the industry with a more sustainable alternative to traditional push-through blister packaging. This game changing innovation will help deliver sustainable packaging solutions for the growing global healthcare industry, whilst importantly maintaining functionality and efficiency, as Push Tab® blister lid runs on existing blister packaging lines without compromising on speed. The Huhtamaki Push Tab® blister lid is made of mono-material PET (polyethylene terephthalate) which significantly improves recyclability of the packaging, whilst remaining compatible with existing high performance blister packaging lines, without needing modifications or extra investment. Huhtamaki and its partner – Klöckner Pentaplast – bring this first-to-market innovation to help the global healthcare and pharmaceutical sector meet their sustainability targets and achieve market growth at the same time. In 2021, European packaging sales in the healthcare category had an estimated value of EUR 1.4 billion, of which approximately 50% were in blister packaging.

Continuing a rapid development journey of sustainable and fiber-based packaging innovations, Ahlstrom passes Western Michigan Recyclability Certification for several food packaging base papers that utilize Ahlstrom’s proprietary FluoroFree® technology. “We are proud that our food packaging products passed Western Michigan University’s testing protocol for recyclability,” says Travis Dahlke, Vice President, Food Packaging Americas. “Achieving this certification offers our customers and the marketplace yet another fiber-based solution to reduce traditional non-renewable materials in packaging engineering and creates a positive end-of-life scenario that consumers are demanding.”