DS Smith, a leading supplier of sustainable and fibre-based packaging solutions, and Raymarine supplier of packaging solutions has been named among the world’s best. The company has won an award in the transit category for its industrial packaging at the World Packaging Association’s WorldStar Awards, further demonstrating that paper-based solutions are the key to sustainable packaging in the future.
The packaging industry is one of the main users of so-called virgin materials, with 40% of the plastics and 50% of the paper used in the EU is destined in packaging. In terms of consumer habits, on average each European generates 180 kg of packaging waste per year.
This makes it particularly important to know what kind of packaging material is delivered to users, shops and supply chains, and how packaging materials are treated after use, and what proportion is recycled. The recycling rate for paper-based packaging is 84.2%, which contributes significantly to ensuring that valuable materials remain in use for as long as possible, reducing the environmental impact.
The purpose of DS Smith is to redefine packaging for a changing world. To achieve this, it provides innovative, sustainable packaging solutions to its partners, offering an effective alternative to problematic plastics. Raymarine was looking for a more environmentally friendly solution to replace the previous foam-based packaging during their navigation system product development process. For such sensitive goods, it is crucial that packaging is designed to provide robust protection and, as the manufacturer ships its products around the world, it is essential that it can withstand a variety of climatic conditions and is resistant to road, air and water transport.
Levente Szabó, Cluster Director, DS Smith Packaging Hungary:
“From our manufacturing to our packaging development, we always look for new opportunities to develop innovative circular solutions, eliminate waste and pollution. Our design, created to support our valuable customer, Raymarine’s environmental goals, demonstrates that paper-based sustainable packaging can be used for consumer goods as well as industrial products, without compromise. We are pleased that the hard work of our team has been recognised with this prestigious award by the industry.”
For the award-winning industrial packaging developed for Raymarine, designer László Kerekes incorporated the substances of corrugated paper into the design as an advantage.
He replaced the vibration-absorbing foam with folded paper inserts, which he used to create crumple zones. This allows the packaging to effectively protect the devices from external impacts and to keep them stable.
The packaging can be customised to different sizes, which also helped to optimise production. While previous packaging contained more than 50% problematic plastic, the innovative solution has become fully recyclable paper-based by eliminating all plastic packaging parts. This has resulted saving in 60% CO2 emissions per unit (from 2.1 kg to 882 g) and 2.4 tons of CO2 emissions per year.
In addition, in terms of warehousing and logistics, the corrugated inserts in flat packs have brought significant savings in the number of pallets used in inbound logistics by 75% compared to the foam inserts previously shipped as a single item. Moreover, waste management has improved by more than 12%.
