The year-one results of what the participants are dubbing “the most important EU packaging research project ever undertaken” are to be announced at a conference on December 6 and 7 in Stockholm.
Sustainpack is a four-year packaging research project with a €30M budget, with €16.8M being provided by the EU’s Sixth Framework Progamme. Its stated purpose is to establish fibreboard or paper-based packaging as “the dominant player in packaging” within a decade.
The project team comprises 35 partners from 13 countries representing packaging research associations, academia and industry. These include France’s Ahlstrom Research and Services, the UK’s Pira International, Sheffield Hallam University and Sainsbury’s Supermarkets, Swedish packaging research consultancy STFI-Packforsk and Sweden’s Stora Enso and Karlstad University.
Being held at Stockholm’s Radisson SAS Arlanda Hotel, next month’s conference will address the project’s results to date by highlighting areas of research which, it is promised, will provide new packaging products; assessing how nanotechnology developments can be “transformed into new products”; examining the manufacture of composite materials combining polymers and fibres, evaluating new coating and printing techniques available for enhancing barriers, analysing how 3D fibre-based packaging will be used in future and exploring how it can “better communicate” with consumers.
For conference details, contact Pira’s Lucia Bly, T: +44 (0)1372 802043; E:luciab@pira.co.uk” Sustainpack: www.sustainpack.com