Manufacturing and Energy

Circular Economy: Carlsberg Brewery aims at recyclable fibre beer bottles across Europe

Carlsberg is to conduct its biggest trial of recyclable fibre beer bottles across Europe. The bottles are made of a wood-based fibre shell and a plant-based polyethylene furanoate (PEF) polymer lining.

Eight thousand bottles will be sampled by customers in eight markets across the continent including the UK, France and Poland.

Carlsberg says the bottles retain the same “taste and fizziness” as glass bottles and could keep the beer colder for longer.

The bottles are bio-based apart from the cap, and there are plans for a sustainable plastic cap that is expected to be delivered in 2023.Advertisement

Stéphane Munch, the vice-president for group development at Carlsberg, said: “Identifying and producing PEF as a competent functional barrier for beer has been one of our greatest challenges, so getting good test results, collaborating with suppliers and seeing the bottles being filled on the line is a great achievement.”

Munch said the company would continue to work with its partners Avantium, which specialises in renewable chemistry and developed the polymer lining, and the packaging company Paboco, which produced the bottle’s outer shell of the bottle, on developments in beer packaging.

News of the wood-based bottle was announced in 2019 and Carlsberg has been working with partners on the design since 2015.

Carlsberg is also turning its sustainability efforts to its beer, using barley malt cultivated using fully organic and regenerative agricultural practices in partnership with the barley malt supplier Soufflet. SOURCE: TheGuardian

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