Marking Global Recycling Day 2025, Winfried Muehling, Marketing & Communications Director at Pro Carton, celebrates increased recycling rates and consumer trust of fibre-based packaging
On this Global Recycling Day, Pro Carton celebrates the progress made by consumers and the packaging industry in advancing sustainable recycling practices, demonstrated by the results of the Pro Carton European Packaging Perceptions Survey 2025. Across Europe increasing numbers of consumers are taking action, with 62% of Europeans increasing their recycling rates in the last 12 months. Notably, 65% of Italians and 70% of Spaniards report that they have recycled more waste in the past year. This highlights a growing commitment to reducing packaging waste and mitigating the impact of climate change through responsible recycling.
Recycling remains one of the most effective solutions to counter packaging waste and environmental impact, with 67% of European respondents citing it as the most promising method to combat climate change. Cartonboard packages after use are not waste; they are a valuable resource that enables the production of new, high-quality packaging materials. By recognising the value of recycled cartonboard, we can further strengthen the circular economy and reduce dependency on virgin materials.
The recycling rates of different packaging materials vary, but paper and cartonboard lead the way with an impressive recycling rate of 83.2%, making cartonboard a key enabler in the transition to a truly circular packaging economy. With consumer trust in the recyclability of cartonboard at an all-time high of 85%, even surpassing glass, this confidence supports the continued reliance on cartonboard as the preferred packaging choice. Cartonboard fibres can be recycled twenty-five times, enabling the production of new, high-quality packaging materials.
Pro Carton advocates for a well-structured, separate collection of fibre-based packaging material that supports consumer participation and maximises material recovery. With resilient materials, consumer engagement, and established collection infrastructure in place, the fibre-based packaging industry is poised to drive meaningful environmental progress.
As we mark Global Recycling Day, Pro Carton reaffirms its commitment to promoting sustainable packaging solutions that align with consumer expectations and strengthen the circular economy. By prioritising recyclability and material recovery, we can create a more sustainable future for packaging and beyond.
SIG announced its network partnership with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. This collaboration aims to push forward the transition towards circular packaging systems, reinforcing SIG’s commitment to environmental stewardship and innovation.
Advancing circular packaging
The collaboration will enable SIG to tap into the expertise of the Foundation and its network, further accelerating SIG’s commitment to reduce waste, improve recyclability and increase the use of renewable materials. The partnership is an important step in SIG’s broader strategy to innovate and scale circular packaging solutions to create a zero waste, low carbon future for the packaging industry.
Collective action for systemic change
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s mission is to accelerate the transition to a circular economy – one that eliminates waste and pollution, circulates products and materials, and regenerates nature – uniting its global network of businesses, policymakers, financial institutions, and experts to drive systemic change. As a network partner, SIG can exchange innovative strategies to advance business transformation.
As a founding member of the industry association RecyPac, Emmi is working alongside its partners to launch a nationwide circular solution for plastic packaging and beverage cartons. The solution was launched in several Swiss municipalities in January 2025, enabling the standardised collection of packaging, including Emmi branded products such as Aktifit and good day. A significant milestone has been reached in the collective efforts to achieve a circular solution in Switzerland for these high-quality recyclable materials, demonstrating the continued progress Emmi is making in achieving its sustainability goals for sustainable packaging and in supporting the circular economy.
Numerous Emmi dairy products such as Aktifit, good day and raclette are already available on the market in recyclable plastic packaging or beverage cartons. Since January 2025, consumers in the city of Bern and the municipalities of Dietikon, Greifensee, Oetwil an der Limmat and Schlieren have been the first to be able to place recyclable packaging into a standardised collection system. This marks the first major milestone in the RecyPac collection initiative’s goal to develop a comprehensive, nationwide solution for the two recyclable materials.
“The standardised collection and recycling solution for plastic packaging and beverage cartons introduces the first nationwide solution. We are continuing our pioneering work to develop a practical, everyday solution for our consumers and are committed to supporting a circular economy in line with our sustainability goals,” explains Marc Heim, Executive Vice President Division Switzerland at Emmi.
Emmi Schweiz AG is a founding member of the non-profit organisation RecyPac. This industry association focuses on the development of a recycling system that involves all stakeholders along the value chain with the aim of collecting recyclable materials nationwide and recycling them to a high standard. This will close a major gap in Switzerland’s circular economy.
Coca-Cola European Partners (CCEP), the world’s largest independent Coca-Cola bottler, has taken an important step on its journey towards 100 % rPET for its plastic bottles by funding CuRe Technology – a recycling start-up which seeks to provide a new lease of life for difficult to recycle plastic polyester waste.
The funding from CCEP, through its innovation investment fund, CCEP Ventures, will enable CuRe to accelerate its ‘polyester rejuvenation’ technology from pilot plant to commercial readiness. Once the technology is commercialised, CCEP will receive the majority of the output from a CuRe-licensed, new-build plant.
Once operational, CuRe has the potential to support CCEP’s ambition, in partnership with The Coca-Cola Company in Western Europe, to eliminate virgin oil-based PET from its PET bottles within the next decade. This will contribute to removing of a total of over 200,000* tonnes of virgin oil-based PET from CCEP’s packaging portfolio a year and support the transition to a circular economy for PET packaging.
CuRe Technology – a start-up, created and led by a consortium of world-leading recycling innovators and experts led by the Morssinkhof Group and the Cumapol/DuFor Group, with strategic partners DSM-Niaga and NHL Stenden University of Applied Science – will initially apply its end-to-end partial depolymerisation recycling process to transform opaque and difficult to recycle (ODR) food grade PET to high quality recycled PET (rPET) that can be used again for food and drink packaging in one continuous process on the same site.
Towards a Circular Economy
The CuRe funding from CCEP Ventures builds on existing strategic investments by The Coca-Cola Company to explore and support the scaling of ‘enhanced’ full depolymerisation recycling technologies in order to make a circular economy for PET a reality.
Depolymerisation recycling technologies complement existing mechanical polymer recycling processes. They have the potential to upcycle lower grade PET that cannot currently be recycled via mechanical recycling means and is instead currently downcycled, incinerated or sent to landfill. These depolymerisation technologies could play a role in significantly increasing the supply of rPET whilst also accelerating the transition to a circular economy for PET bottles by reducing the reliance on virgin oil-based PET.
The Coca-Cola system in Western Europe is working towards a future source vision for its PET material which will help remove the need for virgin oil-based PET (figurative future sources of PET in Western Europe: 70 % derived from mechanical recycling with 25 % from depolyemrisation recycling and 5 % PET from plant-based renewable sources, all while remaining 100 % recyclable*).
About CuRe Technology
CuRe Technology uses a partial depolymerisation process – shortening the polymer chains just enough to allow the removal of many impurities and to rejuvenate food grade PET to high quality rPET – and can be less energy intensive than full depolymerisation offering lower associated C02 emissions. It’s like pressing a ‘reset’ button to partially break down plastic PET into its component building blocks to produce a high quality rPET. Due to the modularity of the process, the longer term ambition for this technology is to upcycle all polyester waste streams including product to product rejuvenation of carpets and textiles.
Joe Franses, Vice President, Sustainability at Coca-Cola European Partners said: “CuRe is an exciting technology start-up with transformational potential developed by an experienced consortium, making it an ideal investment for CCEP Ventures. Our investment in CuRe underlines our commitment to supporting innovations that have the potential to drive growth in our business and our sustainable packaging goals. It also offers us the potential to access vital rPET volume that will help to accelerate delivery of our 100% rPET ambition for our PET bottles.”
As part of their joint Sustainability Action Plan, This is Forward, Coca-Cola European Partners and Coca-Cola in Western Europe have pledged that by 2025, Coca-Cola will: collect a can or bottle for every one it sells and ensure that all its packaging is 100 % recyclable and by 2023 will: ensure that at least 50 % of the content of its PET bottles will come from recycled content, accelerating towards its ambition to use zero oil-based PET in its PET bottles in the future, using instead 100 % recycled or renewable content.
Josse Kunst, Chief Commercial Officer at CuRe Technology said: “Polyester is one of the world’s most reversible plastics and should not go to waste. In the pilot plant phase of the CuRe process, we were supported with a subsidy from the European Union and the three northern provinces of the Netherlands. Now our ambition to create an energy-efficient solution for product to product polyester transformation will be accelerated because of this funding.
The support of CCEP Ventures will enable us to start with opaque and difficult to recycle food grade PET and take the first step towards our ultimate vision of recycling all polyester, again and again.”
*By 2019, CCEP was already using 60,000 tonnes of rPET in its bottle and has committed to using 50% rPET by 2023.
The war on packaging waste is fought on many fronts in the beverage industry – from the manufacturers of packaging materials to the bottler. KHS is helping to develop new standards in this field, from which beverage producers and consumers alike are set to profit.
The way to produce ever more sustainable primary and secondary packaging involves two major lines of approach: recycle and reduce. The first requires that packaging materials are kept in constant circulation by them being reclaimed, processed and continuously reused. The second entails finding many different ways of using less and less packaging material in order to save on resources and avoid waste. “The greatest challenge for us is the processability of the packaging materials,” says Karl-Heinz Klumpe, packaging product manager for KHS in Kleve. He explains what he means in the following example. “Shrink film made of recycled plastic demonstrates very different shrinking properties versus film made of new material. As an engineering company we can’t provide all the answers ourselves but instead have to coordinate closely with the film manufacturers.”
To this end KHS is staging a number of workshops this year. These aim to find out how the percentage of recyclate in film – as stipulated by the new German Packaging Law, for example – can be increased. “You make a few changes to the chemicals or recipe of your film and we adjust the air fl ow or temperature accordingly,” is how Klumpe loosely summarizes the topics up for discussion. “Providing that there’s a standard of quality which is accepted by the big bottlers’ marketing departments, of course. With film made of 100 % recyclate the shrink results aren’t yet satisfactory. Together we still have to work out how to close the gap here between recycling requirements on the one hand and the demand for packs of ever increasing quality on the other.”
Another avenue film manufacturers are exploring is to reduce the thickness of their film. “The material’s getting thinner and thinner,” states Klumpe. “To provide the same stability the materials have to be more and more complex. This has its limitations when used for beverage packaging: below a thickness of 35 microns it’s possible that the price per kilogram for film then again rises. When it comes down to it, neither bottlers nor their customers want to pay for this.”
Spotlight on economy
Klumpe well realizes that the striving for greater sustainability is often rooted in aspects of economy rather than ecology. “Everything we do to reduce the amount of material used primarily has a financial motive and aims to cut costs for bottlers. Or – if we’re talking about recycling – film manufacturers of course have to continue to develop and adapt so that their business model can be further maintained even in the face of stricter legal requirements.”
What applies to plastics also applies to cardboard – chiefl y when it comes to reducing the amount of material used. Paper factories are experimenting with thinner cover layers and lower ridges in the manufacture of corrugated cardboard. “The stability and durability are OK,” assures Klumpe. “However, we have to answer the question of how suitable these materials are for use with machinery. What happens when the cardboard absorbs moisture? If the cardboard is thicker on the outside than the inside, it bends rather like a bimetal and can only be processed on machines with certain restrictions or not at all. What can we do to counteract this?”
In terms of recycling less attention is paid to cardboard than to plastic. Yet here, too, the reuse of this material is an issue, for example in how far print can affect the recyclability of the paper.
KHS is itself also experimenting with new packaging materials. For instance, a manufacturer from Sweden recently approached the company with a newly developed, award-winning cardboard looking for partners for a market launch. “Our top requirement is that we can be sure that we can process the cardboard without any problems,” Klumpe stresses.
Constant process
The packaging experts in Kleve are also in constant dialog with the manufacturers of adhesives and adhesive application systems. “Here, we explore how we can avoid having to heat the glue so intensely or how we can reduce our consumption of adhesive,” says Klumpe. “We’re now applying smaller and smaller dots of adhesive as opposed to the diamond shapes we used to use.” All told, sustainable product innovation is a constant process which KHS is undergoing with both proven and new partners. The focus is always on the question of which approach can be adopted to save on materials, time and energy on the machines.
One example of how energy can be saved is the shrink tunnel with porous gas burners. To heat the air KHS has decided not to use electricity as the energy transfer medium but to work directly with gas to prevent energy being lost during transport from the producer to the consumer. This saves up to 50 % in energy costs and CO2 emissions are cut by as much as 60 %.
In the last few years KHS has also set standards in many other areas with its resource-saving packaging machines. Both Fully-Enclosed FilmPacks and nested and shifted packs have done away with the need for stabilizing cardboard pads or trays. “We don’t need any more cardboard at all here,” smiles Klumpe. “The taut film gives us a good shrink pattern and a sturdy pack.” In a countermove the DisplayPacker has also been developed where large packs are placed directly onto cardboard trays without the need for an extra wrapping of stabilizing film.
However, one of the most outstanding examples of how material can be reduced is the Nature MultiPack™. In 2018 it was launched to market as a six pack of cans by the Carlsberg Group under the name of Snap Pack. A few dots of adhesive developed specifically for this pack which hold the cans together and a stabilizing carrying handle make any further packaging material redundant. Once the new pack format has been fully rolled out, by completely eliminating the use of shrink film for cans Carlsberg is set to make a plastics saving of up to 76 % – that’s more than 1,200 metric tons a year. Danone Waters first made successful use of the Nature MultiPack™ to launch its prestige PET bottle for Evian in 2016.
“In the development of sustainable packaging we see ourselves acting as an interface between all those involved and the beverage industry,” Klumpe sums up. “We’re helping to develop new standards which marry ecological demands and legal provisions with bottlers’ economic interests.” A challenge which is sometimes tantamount to the squaring of a circle.
The difficult economic conditions and uncertainties such as the unresolved trade conflict between China and the USA increasingly affected Krones’ business in the first half of 2019. After strong growth in the first quarter (by 10.3 %), revenue from April to June increased by 0.7 % year-on-year. In total, the company’s revenue from January to June 2019 improved by 5.5 %, from €1,790.8 million in the previous year to €1,889.3 million. Adjusted for acquisitions and currency effects, growth was 1.8 %.
The slowdown in the economy and the uncertain economic outlook are also affecting investment confidence among Krones’ customers. The company experienced weak demand in parts of its portfolio between April and June 2019. However, Krones was largely able to compensate for this due to its broad product range. Order intake from January to June 2019 increased by 1.2 %, from € 2,014.8 million to € 2,038.6 million. Adjusted for acquisition effects, the contract value of orders increased by 0.4 % in the first six months of 2019.
High costs and unfavourable product mix impact profitability
Earnings before taxes (EBT) decreased year-on-year in the first half of 2019, from € 112.7 million to € 47.9 million. The EBT margin dropped from 6.3 % to 2.5 %. Krones’ profitability was impacted by high material and labour costs. The product mix also had an adverse effect on earnings. In the second quarter of 2019 in particular, revenue was lower than expected on products with a large proportion of own value added, such as machines and lines in plastics technology. That led to capacity underutilisation in this area. Another major reason for the lower earnings is that revenue in parts of the high-margin after-sales business was above 2018 but below budget in the first half of 2019. Krones generated consolidated net income of € 33.3 million from January to June 2019 (previous year: € 76.9 million). This corresponds to earnings per share of € 1.06 (previous year: € 2.45).
Krones has improved the ratio of average working capital to sales over the past four quarters. The ratio decreased from 28.8 % in the previous year to 26.0 %. Free cash flow went down to – € 259.4 million (previous year: – € 56.2 million). Krones having a negative free cash flow in the first half year is a seasonal effect and is nothing out of the ordinary for the company’s business.
Krones expects better earnings in second half year
The Executive Board has taken further action to offset the negative impacts on earnings. This includes among others a recruitment freeze and measures to reduce material costs. We are progressing well with the expansion of our global footprint. The new plant in Hungary, for example, is fully on schedule and on budget. Krones will start producing there in the course of this year and will generate positive earnings contributions from the Hungarian plant from 2020 as planned.
Krones expects, in line with previous year, that especially in Q4 the production capacity utilisation will increase as well as the high-margin life-cycle services (LCS) business. Therefore Krones expects better earnings in the second half of 2019 than in the first six months.
In total, the company expects growth of 3 % in 2019. The EBT margin is expected to be around 3 %. For its third performance target, working capital to revenue, Krones expects a figure of 26 %.
Krones working on structural measures and adheres to mid-term targets
The strategic measures launched to date, such as the price rises and expansion of our global footprint so far, are not enough for the earnings targets to be attained on a long term basis. The Executive Board is therefore currently working on further structural changes for a sustained increase in profitability. These changes focus on reducing complexity, rapid response to market needs and shaping an even more customer-centric business organisation.
Krones is maintaining its mid-term targets. Depending on the overall economic situation and developments in the company’s markets, the Executive Board expects average annual revenue growth of 3 % to 5 % excluding acquisition effects, an EBT margin of 6 % to 8 % and working capital at 22 % to 24 % of revenue.
Krones has published the complete Interim Report for the first half of 2019 online at www.krones.com
