C.O.I.M. S.p.A., an Italian multinational company producing specialty chemicals since 1962 and operating worldwide with nineteen manufacturing and trading companies, presents new Novacote coatings for sustainable mono-material flexible packaging.
“There are significant changes happening currently in the world of flexible packaging for food and pharma products, and it is no longer just about performance, but also the sustainability of the materials we use”, explains Sergio Doldi, Technical Manager - Adhesives, Coatings, Inks for Flexible Packaging. “In this situation, a key role is being played by solutions that allow the creation of mono-material packaging, in other words using multiple layers of the same material: this means a common management approach to the EoL of all components, which can be recycled more easily and therefore more sustainably, than packaging manufactured using multiple layers of different materials”.
“COIM has always been involved with research and development in this field, and now presents its new Novacote range of coatings, which have been developed to suit the three main families of packaging materials, namely plastic, aluminium and paper. These are solutions that have come from our applied research activities, which aim to anticipate and meet the needs of a market increasingly focused on sustainability”, says Matteo Bettinelli, R&D and TS Specialist for Coatings.
In the case of aluminium packaging — used typically for coffee capsules, processed cheeses, chocolate, pharmaceutical blister packs and yoghurt tubs — COIM offers new heat-sealable solutions free of PVC and styrene, with a view to raising the level of care for consumer health. These solutions guarantee improved sustainability of the packaging in terms of performance, compared to traditional ones: secure sealing action, optimum levels of chemical resistance and resistance to blocking, but still having a regulatory profile in line with the most stringent statutory requirements.
Where plastic is concerned, the real challenge is managing to develop mono-material solutions for flexible packaging that will achieve the aim of making the material easy to recycle. Polyester has its own specific recycling stream: plastic bottles, for example, are almost completely recycled these days, whilst the recycling of yoghurt tubes and transparent trays used for fruit and vegetables is on the increase. Applying the new Novacote solutions from COIM, a polyester lid can be provided with a layer of heat-sealable lacquer, which means it can be bonded to a polyester tray — made of R-PET, in particular — so as to create a 100% polyester pack. As a result, the number of layers in the packaging can be reduced, dispensing with the classic PET/PE combination and the layer of polyethylene generally applied to PET trays.
Paper is one of the most popular packaging materials in use, but since it has no barrier properties and is not sealable, it will often be bonded with plastic film to obtain the desired performance attributes. There are still many types of packaging in the food sector, for example, those used for snacks and paper cups, which consist of a layer of paper and a plastic film, normally polyethylene, which seal the package to prevent it becoming wet or greasy. But now, with the new Novacote coatings developed by COIM, paper can be coated and given the desired performance characteristics without applying plastic films, and consequently turned into a mono-material packaging that is reclaimed without difficulty in the paper collection and recycling stream.
A final word from Sergio Doldi. “From an environmental point of view, these innovative steps by COIM have a dual value, external and internal: on the one hand, we are able to offer more easily recyclable mono-material packaging products, and on the other, the COIM manufacturing portfolio benefits from raw materials bringing an increased level of sustainability”.
C.O.I.M. S.p.a. press office: Origgi Consulting S.r.l.
Manager: Daniela Origgi
d.origgi@origgiconsulting.it – Mob. (+39) 347 1729113
COIM press office team:
pressoffice@origgiconsulting.it - Tel. (+39) 039 230713
