TC Transcontinental Packaging takes the Gold for sustainability

Montreal-based flexible packaging supplier TC Transcontinental Packaging has won the Gold award for Sustainability with its compostable peanut bag at the 2018 Flexible Packaging Achievement Awards Competition.

Developed internally at Transcontinental Ultra Flex, the new flexible peanut bag was designed using certified compostable materials to support arenas and stadiums’ green initiatives.

“The chief benefit of the new bag is that it reduces the amount of labour previously devoted to the manual sorting of materials collected during clean-up after games,” said Todd Addison, TC Continental’s vice president, business development. “The economic benefit is the lowering of overall waste management costs for the venue and the environmental benefits of this package center around the use of renewable resources and its easy inclusion into the venue managed composting program.”

The new compostable peanut bag replaces the current laminated polypropylene bag which has become steadily barred from stadiums. In response, TC Transcontinental developed an alternative made of two-layer adhesive lamination consisting of certified compostable materials. The print and barrier layer is NatureFlex, a cellulose- based product from Futamura USA and the heat-seal layer is composed of ecovio, a compostable biopolymer from BASF.

“One of the challenges of this structure was in the adhesive lamination of the two plies which was overcome with the Epotal product line, also from BASF, a compostable water-based adhesive that allows the packaging to pass the ASTM Standards it needs to be considered compostable,” Addison said. “The inks are fully tested for ecotoxicity and the graphics are reverse-printed using standard flexographic printing technology. Finally, the bag shows printed verbiage to help consumers understand that it is compostable as part of the venue composting program.”

To date, the introduction of this package is through specific Aramark venues where its composter has verified the compostability of the package. The packaging is shipped to filling plants in rollstock for vertical form-fill-seal machines.

The annual Flexible Packaging Achievement Awards Competition is conducted by the Flexible Packaging Association and showcases the industry’s innovation and the advances that have changed packaging. This year, 66 packages were submitted in the competition, for a total of 164 entries. Twenty packages were honoured with 31 Achievement Awards in five categories: Expanding the Use of Flexible Packaging, Technical Innovation, Sustainability, Printing and Shelf Impact, and Packaging Excellence. All entries were judged by an independent panel of experts.