By Plasteurope.com staff

Thirteen solutions entirely or partly made of plastics have won this year’s German Packaging Award. Creative use of recycled materials, material savings, substitution of packaging materials, and mono-material solutions convinced the jury of the competition organised by the German packaging institute Deutsches Verpackungsinstitut (dvi). The 41 winners will be honoured on 24 September 2024 in Nuremberg at this year’s Fachpack trade fair, where the winners of the Gold Awards final round will be announced.

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For its tubes and closures, Linhardt (Viechtach, Germany; www.linhardt.com) has achieved 100% post-consumer recyclate (PCR), and was therefore honoured with the Sustainability: Overall Concept award. The NextGen PCR tube made of HDPE, including a flip-top made of LLDPE, is an almost completely recyclable mono-material solution, the jury concluded.

Another winner in the Sustainability category – the largest group with six winners – was Wipak Walsrode (Nastola, Finland; www.wipak.com) with a packaging concept for yoghurt. The company’s FlexPod prototype is a flexible packaging solution which, once filled, is stable enough to let consumers spoon yoghurt out of it. According to the jury, the packaging can be manufactured as a mono-material solution either from polypropylene or polyethylene and can be mechanically recycled throughout Europe.

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Another “market-ready” product is Ophthalmic Plus, a bottle for eye drops from Packsys (Feldafing, Germany; www.packsys.de). The main benefit of the winner in the Functionality & Convenience category: the plastic bottle has a bellows at the bottom to make it easier to dispense droplets.

In the Transport Packaging category, no less than five solutions made it to the final round. Zell Systemtechnik (Ehingen, Germany; www.zell-group.com), for example, was honoured for its modular reusable plastic containers that can be individually adapted to different sized components or spare parts.

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An LDPE stretch film for pallet securing jointly submitted by Nestlé Germany, film manufacturer Duo Plast (Lauterbach, Germany; www.duoplast.ag), and DSD (Cologne, Germany; www.gruener-punkt.de) has a recyclate content of 30%, with the proportion of recyclates from DSD’s Yellow Bag averaging 13.2%. The jury emphasised that this film already meets the requirements of the EU’s new regulation on packaging and packaging waste (PPWR).

Meanwhile, the sanstrap re submitted by Sanpack (Glinde, Germany; www.sanpack.com) requires significantly less material to secure pallets. The HDPE stretch band also contains 30% recyclate.

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Finally, the SoftCorner made by Smurfit Kappa (Dublin; www.smurfitkappa.com) made itself a name in the Load Securing category: in the construction of the corrugated cardboard transport boxes, small incisions at the corners are designed to ensure that the boxes remain flexible to prevent the transport film from tearing open under pressure.

The following were also honoured:

• Patented sealing thread dispenser for plastic pipe connections, submitted by Henkel (Düsseldorf, Germany; www.henkel.de);
• Reusable range for cooking oil glass bottles, submitted by Dotch (Berlin, Germany; www.dotch.de) and Ölmühle Moog;
• Refillable aluminium spray cans for deodorant, submitted by Tubex (Wasungen, Germany; www.tubex.de);
• ReZorce: a recyclable mono-material beverage carton made of HDPE, submitted by Zotefoams (Croydon, UK; www.zotefoams.com);
• EcoPeelCover: an aluminium lid for polypropylene yoghurt cups, submitted by Privatmolkerei Bauer and Constantia Flexibles (Vienna; www.cflex.com);
• Honeycomb net made of paper for transport security as an alternative to EPS padding solutions, submitted by Knüppel Verpackung (Hannoversch Münden, Germany; www.knueppel-packaging.com);
• Dissipative antistatic bag made of paper, submitted by Weber Verpackungen (Wickede, Germany; www.weberverpackungen.de);
• Recyclable soft cheese wrapper made of mono-polypropylene, submitted by Leeb (Memmingen, Germany; www.leeb.de);
• Bone Crate: hybrid reusable drinks crate for both bottles and six-packs, submitted by Oberland M&V (Bad Wurzach, Germany; www.oberlandmv.de);
• Flexible toilet paper packaging made from “wild plastics”, i.e. “50% plastics that is outside the recycling cycle and is collected for packaging production” – no further details were given, submitted by Bischof + Klein (B+K, Lengerich, Germany; www.bischof-klein.com), Wildplastic (Hamburg, Germany; www.wildplastic.com), Goldeimer (Hamburg, Germany; www.goldeimer.de), and Wepa (Arnsberg, Germany; www.wepa.eu).

This year’s dvi Prize for Economic Efficiency was won by DMK Deutsches Milchkontor and plastics processor Pöppelmann (Lohne, Germany; www.poeppelmann.com) for a modified, IML-decorated curd and margarine cup. The jury’s verdict: “Thanks to design adaptations in the form of integrated webs on the inner walls, the injection-moulded cup requires 20% less polypropylene compared to typical market alternatives and at the same time offers a 50% increase in cup volume per reusable transport box.”

Flexible packaging for wet wipes that uses rejects from beverage carton recycling was also honoured. The submitter is Saperatec (Dessau-Roßlau, Germany; www.saperatec.de), the operator of the beverage carton recycling plant in Dessau-Roßlau. “The innovation thus provides the first LDPE recyclate coming from outside the established film stream from the yellow bag system”, notes the jury.

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In the New Material category, Plantera (Lübeck, Germany; www.plantera.com) came out on top with its CornPack, a protective transport packaging made from puffed corn semolina, which, according to the jury, is not approved for use in the food industry. The jury appreciated that the material is break-proof and impact-resistant, has insulating properties, and can be disposed of in the organic waste bin or in household compost. CornPack is to be used as an alternative to solutions made of EPS, cork, or wood.

All in all, the 27 members of the jury for this year’s dvi award had a lot to do: almost 250 submissions from 13 countries had to be assessed. The effort seems to have paid off: “Our winners are solving big problems with small, intelligent tricks. In this, sustainability and efficiency almost always go hand in hand,” said the deputy chairman of the jury, Stefan Junge, professor in the Department of Packaging Technology at Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin.

— Translated by Christopher Köbel