Increasing plastic circularity without compromising on performance and consumer experience
By Shyam Kotak, VP of Global Accounts at Aptar Closures
In today’s market, consumers are continuously seeking safe, innovative and convenient packaging that aligns with their different lifestyles and environmental values.
To remain competitive and increase market share, brands around the world are searching for attractive and highly functional packaging solutions that enable them to stand out and attract consumers, while helping them reach their sustainability targets.
At Aptar Closures, we are dedicated to partnering with brands to provide innovative, high-performing and sustainable dispensing closures for a range of applications and markets around the world. We use our exceptional in-house expertise, consumer insights and industry partnerships to design, manufacture and commercialize solutions that improve consumers’ experience while unlocking growth opportunities for brands. In addition to creating memorable consumer experiences, Aptar Closures’ is committed to designing innovative solutions to help brands achieve their sustainability targets without compromising on quality or performance.
Our sustainable innovation approach begins by paying close attention to emerging global market trends, new market demands and consumer insights. We leverage core expertise and creative thinking to respond to our customers’ needs, from concept ideation to consumer experience.
The Rocket sport cap is an example of our commitment and drive towards developing innovative and sustainable solutions that improve consumer experience. ACTIPH Water, the first alkaline ionized bottled water in Europe, chose our Rocket sport cap due to its unique, highly visible, non-detachable tamper-evident cap. This tethered system was designed for easier recycling and complies with the Single-Use Plastics (SUP) directive on beverage caps in Europe. Rocket helps ACTIPH Water meet consumer expectations in safety and drinking experience, while also addressing the increased market demand for companies to offer fully recyclable solutions.
Our customer-centric approach also led to a close collaboration with Starbucks and Nestlé to create the dispensing closure for ones of their newest line of coffee creamers. We leveraged our experience with disc top closures, creamer packaging, consumer insights and industry relationships to help them deliver on their aggressive speed-to-market needs. The custom two-piece closure increases convenience with its unique press-to-open feature that enables consumers to operate with one hand. This is an attractive and highly functional solution, leading to a clean product cut-off and strong shelf appeal. The closure was optimized to be as lightweight as possible while maintaining high performance and recyclability.
Innovation and sustainability —are also critical in the design and manufacturing of dispensing closures that are made to withstand the harsh conditions of the e-commerce supply chain. Brands and retailers often use excessive tertiary packaging to protect packages from breaking or leaking during transit. Aside from creating an unpleasant unboxing experience for consumers, tertiary packaging creates waste since it is not always recyclable and often discarded by consumers. By rethinking primary packaging for the e-commerce supply chain, brands can reduce overall packaging waste, energy used and damaged products. It can also help brands significantly lower charges associated with shipping damage, therefore contributing to downstream savings and bottom-line efficiencies. Aptar has been an official participant in the Amazon Packaging Support and Supplier Network since 2018. We have a fully equipped lab in our Mukwonago,WI, USA facility to test products according to the ISTA-6 protocol and experienced design engineers that are at the forefront of developing solutions for e-commerce shipping.
We continue to pursue and demonstrate our commitment to designing products and processes with people and the planet in mind. Aptar is working closely with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation toward the vision for a more circular plastic economy. We are committed to using 10% recycled content for our dispensing solutions and reaching 100% reusable, recyclable or compostable solutions by 2025.
www.aptar.com
