Eco-packaging: an Austro-Swedish joint venture for paper bottle production

Austrian plastic packaging solutions provider ALPLA and Swedish paper packaging materials and solutions supplier BillerudKorsnäs have announced the launch of a new joint venture in the Danish paper bottle company ecoXpac.

Image credits: ecoXpac

Although BillerudKorsnäs is currently the majority owner, when the transaction has been completed BillerudKorsnäs and ALPLA will own equal parts of the company.

The aim of the partnership is to support commercialisation of the fully bio-based and recyclable paper bottle already developed by ecoXpac. Founded in 2010, BillerudKorsnäs began developing an organic fibre thermoforming process.

Five years later, Carlsberg revealed a first physical prototype of a paper bottle, the Green Fiber Bottle. The concept has undergone further testing and optimisation over the last three years and the aim is now to achieve complete biodegradability.

The joint venture will be based at a BillerudKorsnäs production facility in Denmark and is expected to become operational in the third quarter of 2019 after obtaining all the necessary approvals.