Carlsberg to create the world’s first ‘paper’ beer bottle

Carlsberg Group has made progress on their journey to create the world’s first paper beer bottle made completely from sustainably sourced wood fibres that are 100% bio-based and fully recyclable. 

These developments are part of Carlsberg’s sustainability programme, Together Towards ZERO, which includes its commitment to zero carbon emissions in its breweries and a 30% reduction in its full value chain carbon footprint by 2030.

Carlsberg kicked off the project to develop a bottle from sustainably sourced materials in 2015, alongside innovation experts exoXpac, packaging company BillerudKorsnäs and researchers from the Danish Technical University.

The two new prototypes are made from sustainably-sourced wood fibre, are fully recyclable and have an inner barrier to allow the bottles to contain beer.

One bottle prototype uses a thin recycled PET polymer film barrier, and the other uses a 100% bio-based PEF polymer film barrier.

These combined efforts have resulted in the emergence of Pabocco, the paper bottle company.

Gittan Schiöld, interim CEO of Paboco said: ‘We are collaborating across the value chain, sharing the risks and are united in our vision that the paper bottle will become a reality.’

‘In 2018, the Danish brewer launched a number of packaging innovations including recycled shrink film, greener label ink and the innovation ‘Snap Pack,’ which replaces the plastic wrapping around its six-packs with a solution that instead glues cans together.’

Myriam Shingleton, vice president group development at Carlsberg Group said: ‘We continue to innovate across all our packaging formats, and we are pleased with the progress we’ve made on the Green Fibre bottle so far.’

‘While we are not completely there yet, the two prototypes are an important step towards realising our ultimate ambition of bringing this breakthrough to market.’

‘Innovation takes time and we will continue to collaborate with leading experts in order to overcome the remaining technical challenges.’

Photo Credit – Carlsberg