Berry Global Group, Inc. announced its new commercial-scale clean room for blown film, supporting its growing healthcare business in rigorous healthcare and pharmaceutical applications. The ISO 7 class clean room can produce nine-layer blown films. The new installation fully encloses commercial-scale production of Berry’s proprietary nine-layer blown film from extrusion to packaging, a first in the United States. The addition further enhances Berry’s ability to supply more sensitive applications such as sterile intravenous solution bags, pharmaceutical packaging, medical equipment manufacturing, and microchip packaging. Installed in Berry’s existing Dalton, Georgia, facility, the clean room provides a controlled environment, complete with FDA-approved lubricants and contact surfaces, and a 100 percent inspection system for real-time defect detection for quality assurance.

Stora Enso and Picadeli, Europe’s leading take-away salad bar company, are introducing renewable formed fiber lids to replace single-use plastics in take-away packaging. The lids are made of PureFiber™ by Stora Enso, and they are plastic-free, recyclable, and biodegradable. The innovation will help Picadeli reduce approximately 120 tonnes of plastic waste annually. “Our strategic aim is to grow with sustainable, scalable, and innovative packaging solutions. We do this by supporting strong forerunner brands such as Picadeli in meeting the growing consumer demand for plastic-free and circular solutions. A salad bowl lid is a good example of an everyday single-use plastic item that can make an important difference on climate footprint when replaced by a sustainable alternative,” says Sohrab Kazemahvazi, SVP Formed Fiber at Stora Enso.

Mondi has helped Reckitt on its sustainability journey by designing new paper-based packaging for the company’s market-leading Finish dishwasher tablets. Packaging for dishwasher tablets must be sealable, durable and water resistant, so using paper has traditionally been challenging. However, by working closely together along Mondi’s EcoSolutions approach, Mondi and Reckitt were able to create a solution that is sustainable by design: the new Finish packaging has successfully replaced 75% of the plastic with responsibly sourced paper. The remaining plastic is used to strengthen the paper structure and provide barrier protection to ensure the quality and safety of the Finish product as well as a re-closable seal. The new paper-based packaging for Finish will initially launch exclusively with Carrefour in France, where the packaging is recyclable in the existing paper recycling streams.