Is mono material packaging the answer? Mr. Christophe Marie / Aptar

https://www.aptar.com/
https://www.aptar.com/sustainability/vision-aspirations/

Why is mono material packaging the key to sustainability? 
Is your packaging fully recyclable? 
did you know your beauty packaging could be fully recyclable? 

Check out our sponsor Orora Packaging Solutions 
https://ororapackagingsolutions.com/

https://specright.com/ 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1329820053/ref=as_sl_pc_qf_sp_asin_til?tag=corygat

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-connors/

I'm here to help you make your packaging more sustainable! Reach out today and I'll get back to you asap.

This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.

Transcript

Welcome to sustainable packaging with Cory Connors  I'm very excited for my guest today, Mr. Christophe , Marie, who is the product sustainability director for the whole Aptar  group. Christophe . How are you, sir? I'm fine. Thank you. Thank you for taking time. I'm very impressed with your company and with the sustainability initiatives that you're presenting and moving forward.

Can you tell us about your background and how you got to. High level position in such a great time. Yeah, 

for sure. So let's start a long time ago. In fact about sister BG for me, in fact, when I was 16, I was already wearing some saves the planet t-shirts long time ago. And after I long time after that, I joined Aptar 19 years ago.

In a R and D as a project manager within the pharma segment, then I moved to different position within the pharma, R and D and global market development. And as part of my latest summer position. Yeah. Project management director. At the time I started to work on how we can improve the environmental impact of the project.

And in 2018, after I reviewed its sustainability strategy and it was decided to organize it through five different pillars, P people, circular economy, solution, operation, and suppliers, and. And I have been asked to lead the solution plow, which is about product sustainability. As you can see, I was really happy to have this opportunity as your environment has always been something very important and.

I like that. How they they broke it up into five systems or pillars, like you said, I think that's really important that you don't just look at it as a whole, all the time that you focus on one stream and say, look, I'm gonna tackle this. This is my job. I think that's cool. So Christoph we're where are you located in the world?

And France, how are things over there today? Cold. I think 

he is quite good.  

So, so tell us about avatar what's app tutorial, about what, what do you guys do kind of packaging? I know Jamie sent me this really cool. Fully recyclable . So, can you speak to that?

Yeah. So after is a global leader, in fact, in design and manufacturing or for what Wayne troffer drug delivery, consumer product dispensing system and active material science solution. So  solution and services. So the value of. Including pharmaceutical beauty, personal care, home care, food and beverage.

And in fact, we prayed them predominantly focused on dispensing solution, but also sell food packaging such as the artist's packaging. And we consider ourself as a B to B C company, as we utilize design consumer and marketing insight and innovation to create innovations that impact consumers. So after it's broken into three division, which are based on the market beauty and home food and beverage and pharma.

And if you want to look into what other product you, you show a very nice one and after dispensing and closure product, or if we were. If you go to or in your house, you will see plenty of our product. And just to provide you a few example, looking into your personal pharmacy, you may find a voter in over salbutamol, PGI, or Nelda dispenser for allergic rhinitis from pharma division in the best.

You will find some Alix, packaging, lotion, poem, perfume, sweep, pumps, steep closure for laundry product for  division. And then I'm quite sure that you will find your clutter for ketchup or Mayo or some spot. So spot closure, three from a food and beverage division. So plenty of different products and If we were into everyone they life, 

you know, that's such an important point.

What you're just saying is packaging is everywhere. It's all around us. It affects our daily lives. When you reach for the shampoo bottle, when you reach for the hand soap pump, when what, every, like you said, makeup. You know, I'm always amazed at how many bottles my wife has for or containers I should say.

And it's such an important part of our lives. The fact that you guys are, are working hard to make it more sustainable is incredible and very impressive.  It's fully recyclable and that means all the pieces are the same material. Is that correct? This is correct. Yes.

So is that the future is mono material of the secret to sustainability. So 

one of my wonderful material packaging creates a greater chance for the product to be recycled clearly. And we strongly believe this is a key element to improve the recyclability of plastic packaging and even all the packaging.

So growing this food, the first element is to select the material for which recycling stream. And then when dispensing or closure system are made from the material as a container, it gives a chance for recyclability of the packaging material. So when multiple material are used and depending on the material mix, there is a risk impact, the recyclability of the full package.

And as an example, I have developed this bond that you were showing before, which is a full people that we call future, which is fully recyclable when associates to a PT or. And this development was really a huge challenge for technical teams that to receive totally the principle of the pump engine, to be able to use only one material, which is polyethylene.

So at the end mono material, plastic packaging will always be easier to recycle the new merchandise, your product using as an example, paper and plastic. So.

to the challenges, packaging, industries, facing , and that is only one aspect of a truly circular economy. If we want to have a more holistic view we can say that Tessy packaging has been introduced on the market with. Okay. So without taking care of the end of life management, and at Aptar , we believe that the packaging industry move away.

You're beyond the make use  dispose, be of yours, the path, and actively work toward a circular economy and by circulating use plastic and packaging, a Wikipedia in the economy and autopsy. Therefore we reduce the quantity of plastic needed. We use recycled material and recycled plastic packaging and the lightweight and the look we're using today.

So really our vision is to design product and processes with the people and planet in mind. And we are focusing our activities on three main activities and three areas of the design for sustainability recycle material recycling. And also we use bat and if we want to focus on recycled material, I've done a lot of work in recycled, passive PCR that we call PCR post-consumer recycled material.

And that began converting some of our stock black cuisine product to. We have also worked. Yes. And this is a available and already on the market. We have also worked with company like Unilever to create the world's first certified recycled plastic beauty packaging that is certified by the international sustainability and carbon certification.

Using your chemical recycling material and coming back to recyclability to improve the recyclability of plastic packaging, we have to ensure that the complete packaging is recyclable or parts are resectable in the same recycling stream. And this is really key. Therefore, if we want. We have to avoid two combined in the same packaging material, which are not compatible with the recycling stream.

So as your position, we have to use material which are compatible compatible. So we all that are separable during the recycling process and develop as much as we can mono material . Solution, because this is really the ideal situation. So as you can see from this chapter is really aligned with the goal of alumni Kartra foundation.

And we are working towards 100% of our packaging into beauty and own food and beverage market to be recycled recyclable or compostable by 2025. So programming in front of us in the community. 

That's a fantastic goal. Wow. Well done. Do you feel that , compostable packaging needs a place to go like for now I feel like people aren't sure what to do with it when they get at home.

What are your thoughts? 

Yeah. Yeah, you are correct. This is one of the one of the issue today with compostable product is that when I was talking about recyclability, we have to be sure that there is a recycling stream that exists with compostable. It's exactly the same. We have to be sure that there is a compostable compostable stream that exists.

So that two ways to to . Or industrial composting, composting, the two need to be challenging, and you have to be sure that the packaging is compatible with this. If you have a middle part and everything else is a compostable at the end, you will put , some metal into your garden. So not what you want to do.

And is the same for, for industrial company. Stream doesn't exist. And we have to be sure that the packaging is directed into the right stream and that the the composition of the material will be compatible with the competition, with the decomposition of the over material community to be stream.

So this is something to, to develop. I'm sure it will come one day, but so far it's very limited and we have to take care of. 

Yeah, this is a conversation that comes up a lot in these, in these podcasts and, and in my clubhouse rooms and, and Tiktoks  or videos or LinkedIn everybody's talking about, well, just make it compostable.

Well, like you said, that's only part of the solution. We need to make sure that it has a place to compost. Like you said, in somebody's backyard. It better be all the way compostable if it's in their garden or industrial compostable, same thing you don't want to be putting, like you said, metal or things that wouldn't compost into a industrial compost either.

So it's very exciting to think about what we can accomplish in the future. But I agree. We have quite a ways to go. So I w this isn't on my list of questions, but I wanted to know your opinions on paper bottles. Have you seen this new trend where companies are making molded pulp bottles that are lined with plastic ?



Yeah. People would all, yes. So people about all, this is something which, which is interesting, which is part of our of our investigation clearly. And what is important is to, is it paper or is it a. Only paper or does it contain also alternating material like so far I think that most of them still contain some plastic and in that case, the plastic could be an issue in the recycling stream of the paper.

So we have to be sure about that. Clearly having a paper we're told would be would be one good option. We have to be sure also about what is it compete on governmentally. Of the type of material every time you have to assess at some point on beyond mental impact. And if, once again, the recycling stream really exists.

And what is the ability of this recycling stream to recycle the food material? Because a, if a valuable to to recycle a 50% as an example of the material, maybe this is not as good as we could expect. So. This is one word. And this is something we also investigate. I would think that we are not at the end of this journey and not that the year objective outside.

Totally agree. We have a long ways to go, but there's been progress made daily. I wanted to ask you also about extended producer responsibility. Do you feel like this will make a large impact on companies like.

So directly, I would say no, because we already take into a code into the designer for our products, the recyclability and things like that. So extended producer responsibility, you can get some menus and so on is the packaging is not recyclable or not using a recycled material. So as we are targeting to a free recyclable, It's going into the same direction.

And I think that epi is more to to push municipalities government and so on to organize the collection and the sorting of 

That's a great way to look at it. If you're already doing the right things, this extended producer responsibility can only help you. That's a brilliant way to think about it.

Christophe. Thank you. Haven't thought about it from that point of view. I've only been thinking about the people who aren't ready yet. So you guys are ahead of the curve. I think your business should spike here when, when all of these laws take effect and then everyone else will have to catch up.

Well, good for you. Yeah. Thank you so much. What do you see as the, the future? I mean, other than other than this bottle for this isn't if you're not watching the video, if you're listening to the show, I'm, I'm showing a bottle that's from app tar and it's all the components are made of the same material.

Christophe, what else will we see from apertura in this. 

So we'd continue for short to develop a mathematical solution. We will continue to reduce the weight of our product because the less material you put on the market, you less, you have to transport, recycled and so on. And so on. This is clearly a, this is clearly obvious.

We really. The quantity of recycled materials that we use in our product. And we are going to to clearly push for our standard product to be used, to be made of recycled content, to be, to have recycled material, maybe not all the time, 100%, but to, to have a, a good a good level of recycled material.

And we will also continue to develop and explore. We use. Clearly, this is some things that we have to explore and here we need to develop a new product and there is a need also to develop a new business model associated to that. We have to define how it works for the consumer and our different reusable models that we are exploring.

And we need to continue to assess the life cycle assessment of. And to be sure every time that we make a modification in some area that we with no negative impact in another area of the supply chain this is something very, very important. And we will continue to reintroduce and investigate a new new material technology to be able to bring somebody from Rebecca.

You also biomaterial a part of it. New technologies of recycled material is also part of of what we call.

Mostly we were in the field of the different option on a, on product sustainability, at least the. 

That's great. I interviewed my friend Connor hill. He lives in England and he said they have a truck that comes around and you can refill you know, soap shampoo, conditioner dishwashing, you know, so that to me is fascinating.

So you could reuse this hundreds or thousands of times. I think that's a very possibly the future. So that's exciting that you guys are looking at that as well. 

Yes, we used the  different partnership here in particular we've looped with, from a down cycle. And I know, so we have a  partnership in place and really, we want to explore the different model today.

I'm not sure that it's really defined what would be the right model Every all the brands everyone is exploring what would be a good, and maybe the situation is different depending on the region on the countries. And as the needs are different and we need to adapt this type of Madame. 

That's wonderful.

I didn't know. You guys were working with Lupe and Terra cycle. That's a, they're doing some very impressive things. So that means you're doing some very impressive things. So that's awesome. So thank you so much for your time today, Kristoff. What's the best way for the audience to get ahold of you and to.

So the best way is for, is to reach our sales people . For sure. If you are, if you are a brand and otherwise we, you can contact us through our school website and we'll be more than happy to, to collect review and provide on sir. And and other specific your discussion whatever is needed. 

Thank you, sir. I want to thank Landsberg Orora for your continued support and sponsorship of this podcast.

And thank you again, Christophe . We really appreciate what you guys are doing for the environment and you're making a big impact. Thank you.