INDIA – Constantia Flexibles, the world’s third largest producer of flexible packaging has opened a new plant flexible packaging plant in India dedicated to only produce more sustainable and recyclable flexible packaging.
The plant, which the company said is the world’s first of its kind, will focus on the more environmentally friendly packaging family EcoLam.
Alexander Baumgartner, CEO of Constantia Flexibles: “We know about our responsibilities towards the industry, the end consumers and – first and foremost – towards the environment.
“Thus, we are not only focusing on developing more environmentally friendly packaging, we also designed the first plant in the world dedicated to produce sustainable packaging only.
“The plant named Constantia Ecoflex Ahmedabad is located in Gujarat in India, which is the perfect market to implement such a forward-looking project.”
The Vienna-headquartered company said that the solutions produced at the new plant all belong to the innovative product family EcoLam, which is part of Constantia Flexibles’ innovative product line Ecolutions.
EcoLam is a lightweight Mono-PE laminate suitable for a great variety of packaging applications. Due to its mono-material structure it is fully recyclable, and its carbon footprint is approximately 32% lower than that of comparable products.
The EcoLam family comes in different barrier grades (EcoLam, EcoLamPlus, EcoLamHighPlus) to deliver the barrier needs for a diverse range of products.
The plant has an area of 24,500 sqm, currently there are 50 people working at the plant, the number is expected to triple by the second quarter of 2020.
With the new plant, the company added that it is supporting the Indian government’s efforts of reducing plastic wastes – which saw the adoption of ‘Plastic Waste Management Rules’ in 2016.
Among other things, the rules prescribe to scrap single-use plastic like pouches completely by the year 2022 as well as phase out of non-recyclable multi-layered plastic.
“With Constantia Ecoflex Ahmedabad, we are making a big step towards more sustainable packaging. This is not only a great progress in terms of sustainability for Constantia Flexibles but also the entire packaging industry,” added Baumgartner.
Constantia Flexibles has also agreed to extend its participation in the New Plastics Economy initiative for the next 3 years, until 2022.
In addition to working in different pioneer projects on topics such as improved sortability of plastic packaging, Constantia Flexibles has signed the Global Commitment in 2018, pledging that 100% of its packaging will be recyclable by 2025.
