Swiss company Hoffmann Neopac, a packaging solutions provider for a broad array of industries and applications, has introduced the fully recyclable polyethylene-based tubes with high-density polyethylene (HDPE) flip-top caps. A breakthrough in the worldwide push for packaging sustainability, the mono-material tube + cap combination overcomes a longstanding functionality hurdle for hinged caps, which were previously made predominantly from less recyclable polypropylene (PP) materials.
Hoffmann Neopac is a family-run company located in Thun in Switzerland. The company produces high quality metal and plastic packaging on five sites — cans at Hoffmann in Thun and at CMP in Holland, Polyfoil and plastic tubes at Neopac in Switzerland and Hungary. International pharma, cosmetics and consumer goods manufacturers in the markets of Europe and North America feature among the longstanding customers. The company also acquired the majority shareholding in 3D Technopack based in Mumbai, India, thereby securing a foothold in the Asian market. With the new production facility in the US, the company employs a workforce of more than 1000 and has capacity for 1.3 billion tubes.
According to Neopac, the new tube solutions are fully recyclable tube solutions whose body, shoulder, and caps are composed of a single material family. Also available in screw-top formats, the new tubes are suitable for health and beauty, food, and pharma packaging applications.
In addition to the new HDPE flip-top caps, Neopac is also launching a comprehensive portfolio of PE screw caps. Manufactured entirely in-house, the screw caps are available in diameters of 10 to 40mm.
“Achieved in collaboration with a long-time supplier, the new HDPE flip-top caps overcome the last hurdle to fully recyclable tube packaging – namely, the ability to form functional closures from the same material as the tube body and shoulder,” said Simon Böhlen, development engineer for Neopac. “Health and beauty, food and pharmaceuticals brands can now assure their increasingly sustainability-conscious customers that the packaging in which their products are housed has the lowest-possible environmental impact, as we move toward a fully circular packaging economy.”
Neopac said the full PE Cap range is now commercially available for all Neopac’s PE, COEX, EcoDesign, or Polyfoil Range. In addition, starting November 2020, the recyclable fully mono-material PE Tubes with Flip-top cap will be available as stock solutions with the new printing service DigitAll360°.
Neopac is currently developing stages of next-generation, HDPE-optimized high-performance barrier tubes (Polyfoil MMB) with superior decoration options. Available with PE screw-top caps, the forthcoming solutions already have received excellent ratings from Institute Cyclos-HTP, a packaging recyclability certification organization.
