Swiss packaging giant Tetra Pak (Lausanne; www.tetrapak.com) has launched a carton that is made entirely from renewable materials. The "Tetra Rex" carton, which the company claimed will be the industry’s first to be 100% based on plant material, contains LDPE films and HDPE caps made from sugar cane. The paperboard is also certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

The carton has been developed in partnership with Brazilian resins producer Braskem (Sao Paulo; www.braskem.com.br) and will be commercially available early next year. Tetra Pak announced last May that all packaging produced in Brazil will use bio-based LDPE with plans to expand the process to other world markets – see Plasteurope.com of 14.05.2014.

Charles Brand, Tetra Pak’s vice president for marketing and product management, said: "Environment excellence is one of Tetra Pak’s strategic priorities and a driver of our product development activities. We believe that increasing the renewable content of our packages is not only good for the environment, but also offers our customers a competitive advantage in the overall environmental profile of their products."

Tetra Pak’s customers using the standard 1 litre Tetra Rex packaging with "TwistCap OSO 34" can transfer easily to the new version without any modification or additional investment to their existing filling machines.