rPET SCHOOL MILK CUP

WINS 2022 WORLDSTAR SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING SPECIAL AWARD
2022 WORLDSTARSUSTAINABLE PACKAGINGSPECIAL AWARDGOLD WINNER

2022

rPET school milk cup
PET-MAN, Starlinger viscotec, Greiner Packaging, Schulmilchbauern Oberösterreich
KEY FEATURES
Closed Loop Collection programMono Material Recyclable Design

Unique solution for fresh milk for schools

Minimises Food & Product Waste

Recycled PET that is Food Safety

Minimises the use of single use an be recycled over and over again intoC
more school milk cups

 ollaborative solution for the widerCindustry

Approved

plastics

The packaging solution and recycling loop have been realised in a cooperation between
three companies (recycling technology producer, sheet producer, packaging producer)and Austrian school milk producers, who established a closed recycling loop for yoghurt
cups:
Starlinger viscotec is an Austrian technology and machinery provider, that produces
machines and plants for the refinement of recycled PET for food contact and extrusionlines for PET sheet made from up to 100 % rPET. www.viscotec.at
PET-MAN is a converter who supplies food grade and environmentally friendly PET
sheet made from post-consumer material. www.petman.at
Greiner Packaging is a leading European manufacturer of plastic packaging in thefood and non-food sectors. www.greiner-gpi.com
The clients (and project partners) are the Upper Austrian school milk producers, whoprovide children with fresh products ordered directly to schools and kindergartens.
REGIONAL AWARDS PROGRAM

COORDINATED BY

WORLD
PACKAGING
ORGANISATIONAUSTRIA2022 WORLDSTARSUSTAINABLE PACKAGINGSPECIAL AWARDGOLD WINNER

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In the context of your award-winning packaging innovation, what do you see as Sustainable Packaging?
How does this pack stand out?
The three-way partnership is fully-convinced of the advantages of PET as packaging material since recycled
PET (rPET) is a sustainable material choice with a low carbon footprint. PET is ideal for mechanical recycling
because its material properties (for example, intrinsic viscosity) can be restored in the recycling process.
Unlike other plastics, PET has the advantage that collected PET bottles and trays can be recycled backinto new rPET packaging that is approved for food contact, e.g. by the European Food Safety Authority.
The PET beverage bottle was the blueprint for the development of the rPET school milk cup. A beveragebottle can be turned into a beverage bottle again after recycling. For food packaging, PET/rPET currently
meets the requirement of a closed loop. A beverage bottle, however, which after recycling becomes, forexample, a car interior trim, goes into a so-called ‘end-of-life’ application and thus is lost for the foodpackaging recycling loop. The rPET school milk cups consist of 100% recycled, unprinted rPET monomaterial and can be recycled over and over again into 100% food-grade cups.
What would you say were the decision-making drivers (Internal and External) influencing this awardwinning packaging design? Did your client or the consumers request the changes?
The producers of the school milk were actively searching for a more sustainable packaging solution for
their dairy products. In the past, they sold their yoghurts in glass containers or cups made from PS or PP.
Glass containers are heavy, the washing is time-consuming and requires a lot of water and detergents– nothing that lands well with an organic farmers’ values. In their search for sustainable packaging, theschool milk producers tried different packaging solutions, such as cups made of compostable plastic,
which did not live up to their sustainability claim.
The school milk producers’ requirements towards the packaging were: it should be environmentally friendly,stable, and lightweight. It has to be recyclable and ideally white, since dairy products must be protectedfrom UV light.
In spring 2020, the school milk producers got in touch with Starlinger viscotec, who proposed to develop
an unprinted cup, made from 100% recycled PET. The second objective of the project was, to create aclosed-loop recycling system for this new packaging to avoid waste. To achieve this goal, the cooperationof other players in the value chain was also necessary. The companies PET-MAN and Greiner Packaging
became part of the project and implementation as cooperation partners.

2rPET SCHOOL MILK CUPWhat benefits does this new design offer yourbusiness/your client’s business and the end
consumers? Why is the pack more sustainable?
The cups are recyclable, are unprinted, do notcontain plasticisers, are 100% safe for food contact,
and thanks to the reduced material use they have asmaller CO2 footprint than previous cups, meaning
they have an even better CO2 balance than glass.
Plastics do not have a good reputation in thepublic eye. With recycled plastics, however, highpackaging quality meets an excellent eco-balance.
The rPET cup is a local product that is 100%
recyclable. In comparison to glass bottles, rPET
cups need less energy throughout production, they
are lighter and require less energy to be cleaned.
Overall, the new rPET cups cause one-third less
CO2 emissions than glass bottles. In addition, no‘new plastics’ are being used. Not only the material
choice and the design of the packaging make therPET cups the more sustainable alternative, butalso the recycling loop which has been established
to bring back the used cups and recycle themback into new rPET cups. This recycling loop
is economical, as it creates added value in theregion and makes efficient use of resources. The
social aspect of recycling education and thepromotion of regional agriculture complements
the sustainable model.

What volumes of materials, packaging and waste
have you saved by designing this new packaging?
Did you do this through changing materials, lightweighting, recycled content, making the packs
recyclable, compostable or reusable?
First and foremost is material choice and Designfor Recycling.
The school milk rPET cups avoid waste, since thepackaging is recycled in a closed recycling loop.
The low CO2 footprint is achieved by reducing
material use and weight. The cups are made fromrecycled material AND they are designed to berecycled over and over again.
As part of the project, a carbon footprint analysis
was carried out to determine the savings potentialof the new rPET cup in terms of emissions. The
carbon footprint provides information on how many
greenhouse gas emissions (including C, methane,nitrous oxide) are produced in kilograms of C
equivalents over the entire life cycle of a productor service. It is calculated for a defined, functional
unit - in this case the four school milk packages.
c7-consult determined the climate footprint of theschool milk rPET cup and compared it with previous
school milk packaging. In the analysis, the rPET cup
performs significantly better with 21 g C equiv./cup.
The use of recycled material, the short distances
and the lower weight make the collection of thecups particularly CO2 efficient.
At 34 g CO2 equiv./packaging unit, the PP plastic
cups cause 21% higher CO2 emissions than therPET cup. The PS cup and the returnable glass
even cause 50% more CO2 emissions compared tothe rPET cup, with 42 g CO2-equiv./packaging unit
each. rPET is thus clearly the more environmentallyfriendly alternative.

School Milk PackagingCO2-Footprint Analysis
carried out by c7-consult e.U.

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rPET SCHOOL MILK CUP
How much on-pack and off-pack information do
you provide the consumers? e.g.: QR/2d codes,
recycling logos, certifications, links to websites,labelling on pack, how to correctly dispose of
the packaging/components?
On-pack information
The rPET cup itself is unprinted, to enable recycling
in food grade quality standards. Direct printing on
the cup would impede recycling and would stain the‘whiteness’ material in the following recycling cycle.
The product information and recycling information
is provided on the sealing lid.
Off-pack information
The introduction of the new packaging solution wasaccompanied by an information campaign for theconsumers (pupils and parents). The project has
also helped to raise awareness for recycling andcorrect disposal of packaging. Children should bemade aware of the sustainable use of nature as
early as kindergarten and school age. By using the100% recycled rPET cups, they learn at an early age
that plastic is not just plastic and that it makes a
big difference whether packaging is simply thrownaway or can be used to make new packaging overand over again.

What does your company have planned in thefuture? Any new innovations on the horizon?
Since the projects start and the introduction of theclosed rPET cup recycling loop (in 2021), school
milk producers of other regions have followed theexample and introduced the new packaging.
Every project partner has continued their efforts topromote the idea of closed recycling loops. Starlinger
viscotec has introduced the rPET100 sheet material,a heat-resistant and fully recyclable sheet material
for thermoformed packaging, designed for hot-fillapplications and dairy products.
Greiner Packaging has introduced the K3® r100
design, a sustainable packaging solution whosecardboard wrap separates from the plastic cup allby itself en route to the recycling plant.

What do you feel will be needed to further improvepackaging design in your country and also globallyin the future? (e.g. education, investment, policy/legislation, technology, etc?)
Markus Fellinger, General Manager of Starlinger
viscotec, frames the broader vision and objective:“We have to achieve high recycling rates, such as
those already established for beverage bottles,
also for other food packaging such as yogurt pots
and trays. Packaging made from recycled PET issustainable because this material can be recycled
virtually infinitely and to a high quality.”
The three key ingredients required to achieve thesehigh recycling rates are: cooperation along the value
chain, ‘Design for Recycling’ taken seriously, andcommunication. It is key to convey the value of
any used packaging to the consumers. Sustainable
packaging is not just black-and-white with simple
answers and ready-made solutions. It requires
dialogue between the stakeholders, and dedicatedpeople with a clear vision, to implement manysuccessful examples of sustainable packaging thatare ‘circular by nature’. A legal framework which
fosters investments into collection and sorting, plus
recycling infrastructure, is what we will require not
only in Austria but for all European countries.
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2022 WINNERWORLDSTAR
PACKAGING AWARD

2022 WORLDSTARSUSTAINABLE PACKAGINGSPECIAL AWARDGOLD WINNERrPET SCHOOL MILK CUPWhat does winning global WorldStar Packaging Award mean to you and your team?
“The fact that the World Packaging Organisation
has awarded the golden sustainability award to ourrecyclable and recycled plastic packaging, among allproducts, makes us very proud,” says Markus Fellinger,
General Manager of Starlinger viscotec.
We feel encouraged by the award in our path and ourvision. By implementing the closed-loop school milkcup, the project team also wanted to show that it ispossible to establish a closed loop for dairy packaging
made of rPET in the future.” Markus Neudorfer,
Managing Director of PET-MAN, puts it like this: “Foodpackaging made from white PET/rPET is a valuablesecondary raw material. Our vision is to establish thecollection and recycling of white rPET.”
Johannes Strobl, who represents the Upper Austrian school milk producers, has expressed hispleasure on behalf of all school milk producers about the great recognition and appreciationof the efforts to pack their products as sustainably as possible. He shares with us that theschools are excited about the project. “They appreciate the fact that the used rPET cups reallyare made into new cups.”

WorldStar Packaging Awards
Owned & Operated by the World Packaging Organisation the WorldStar
Packaging Awards is the preeminent awards program in the world.
Only packaging that has won recognition in a recognised national orregional competition, either in the present year or the previous year iseligible to apply for WorldStar Competition. Currently, 73 competitions
from 39 countries and regions are recognised by WPO as qualifying forentry to the WorldStar Packaging Awards program.
There are 18 General award categories and 5 special awards including
Accessible Packaging Design, Marketing, Sustainable Packaging Design,
Packaging that Saves Food and the President’s Award.

WorldStar Special Award - Sustainability
The WorldStar Sustainable Packaging Design Special Awardis designed to recognise companies that have developed innovative
packaging solutions that incorporate sustainability considerations. Allentries are judged on Sustainable Packaging Design considerations
such as social impact, material, source reduction, energy and recovery.
www.worldstar.org

About The World Packaging Organisation
WORLDPACKAGINGORGANISATION

The World Packaging Organisation is a non-profit, non-governmental,
international federation of national packaging institutes and associations,regional packaging federations and other interested parties including
corporations and trade associations.
www.worldpackaging.org
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