Circular Online’s Darrel Moore speaks to Jerry Porter, Senior Vice President, P&G Fabric & Home Care Research & Development about its recent paper bottle trial.
At the end of July, Procter & Gamble (P&G) unveiled its first paper bottle for Lenor in partnership with paper bottle company, Paboco, announcing a pilot for Western Europe in 2022.
The trial rollout will form the basis of a test and learn strategy to scale up paper packaging and incorporate it more widely across P&G’s portfolio. You can find out more about the trial here.
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about why P&G has decided to trial a paper bottle over plastic?
P&G Fabric & Home Care is moving fast on all fronts, from piloting paper bottles to reducing virgin plastic by increased use of PCR, compacting formulas, and light-weighting packaging.
It is less a case of either or and more a case of exploring every avenue that can help to reduce both our carbon and plastic footprints.
Q: P&G says the Paboco paper bottle lowers the carbon footprint compared to conventional plastic packaging. How is this?
As a renewable resource, paper can contribute to a lower carbon footprint compared to conventional plastic packaging if sourced from responsibly managed sources.
All the paper to make Paboco bottles comes from FSC certified sources already and looking forward, we will also evaluate the use of recycled paper.
As a renewable resource, paper can contribute to a lower carbon footprint compared to conventional plastic packaging if sourced from responsibly managed sources.
With our Ariel and Tide’s ambitions to decarbonise laundry at every step, the carbon footprint is central to all of our decision making, from packaging design to how products are used in people’s homes and recycled.
Q: Paboco says storing liquids in paper could have major benefits for the planet. Can you outline some of these benefits?
Paper is a renewable resource and one of the easiest to recycle materials on the planet.
Unlike for many other materials, consumers are very well accustomed to recycling paper and recycling rates for paper are significantly higher than for other materials, such as plastic.
Our vision [is] to lower the carbon footprint by avoiding the use of fossil fuels and to be fully recycled in the paper stream, which will help reduce the burden of plastic waste in the environment.
Q: While the bottle is made from sustainably sourced FSC-certified paper, the pilot product has a thin plastic barrier made from post-consumer recycled PET. Given this, how can a consumer recycle this product given it won’t be accepted by household recycling collections?
There is no bond between the plastic lining and the paper, and the two can be separated. We are working with recyclers to understand how that lining could be treated in the current recycling process.
This prototype bottle will not be used in the long run, it is a waypoint on the development journey towards a 100% biobased bottle with integrated barrier that can be fully recycled in the paper stream.
Q: P&G says future versions of the bottle will integrate the PET barrier into the paper lining to create a seamless, 100% bio-based bottle, fully recyclable in paper stream. Can you expand on this at all?
Yes, that’s right. We are actively testing new barrier applications now, as well as looking at how we might use recycled paper content.
As is often the case in innovation projects, improvements are made over time, but we need to learn along the way to create an optimal solution.
A very important part of this pilot will be to help generate data for liquid in a paper packaging and its end of life.
As is often the case in innovation projects, improvements are made over time, but we need to learn along the way to create an optimal solution.
This will enable us to create the right fully recyclable paper packaging in the future to handle P&G Fabric & Home Care liquids.
In our end vision, for the final bottle, we will have replaced the plastic neck with a paper thread and are coating the inside of the paper bottle with a very thin 100% biobased barrier that will keep the paper bottle liquid proof, ensuring the product integrity. It will be fully recyclable in the paper recycling stream.
Q: How does P&G see the role of bio-based packaging in its future strategy?
At the moment all options are on the table in terms of evolving packaging to be more sustainable and to delight our consumers – from creating bio-based bottles to developing entirely new formats.
We feel strongly that bio-based packaging has a promising future when responsibly sourced.
Every step in this direction needs to take into consideration carbon footprint, social implications, biodiversity, and financial impact, in addition to the wider environmental considerations.
It is a balancing act, and a lot of work and analysis is required to ensure we are delivering the benefits we intend to!
Q: How important is it for companies like P&G to innovate to reduce the environmental impact of its packaging? And will such measures like extended producer responsibility help?
Innovation is at the heart of P&G and has been at the foundation of the business since its inception. Now that innovation mind-set is firmly focussed on lowering our carbon footprint: leadership brands Ariel and Tide, for instance, recently committed to decarbonising the value chain.
Fabric Care Europe has also pledged to a 30% absolute plastics reduction by 2025 and to design for 100% recyclability by 2022 – it is well on track for both commitments. Home Care is committed to use no virgin plastics by 2025.
We take the science-based approach for sustainability, using among others Life Cycle Assessments as a tool to measure our footprint across all parameters of our product and packaging.
This is what is clearly guiding our innovation toward a lower environmental footprint in everything we do today.
We endorse regulatory measures that can reduce the environmental impact of products across the board: everyone has their part to play, and we play ours proactively, with science and innovation.
