Exploring functional barrier coatings for paper, with Conor Ludden

Absolutely.

I think there's been a lot of innovation in this space over the last few years.

And that's been driven by both regulations and also by brand owners and consumers looking for materials made from renewable feedstocks.

This has been very positive for the market overall.

We've seen that there's definitely been a big focus and shift when it comes to curbside recyclable packaging.

And the evidence backs this up around paper-based packaging.

So based on Eurostat, 87% of paper and cardboard packaging is recycled in Europe.

and that's compared with 42% for plastic.

So we do see that paper-based packaging does have a very big role to play in this space.

Functional coatings have grown with this trend, and there's a number of companies, including Knopley, who are innovating in this space, whether it's things like grease and oil barrier that you mentioned, heat sealability, moisture barrier, really focusing on how these different feedstocks and different materials can map over to different use cases.

There have been other coatings, and when it comes to different processes, broadly focusing on both extrusion and water-based dispersion coatings.

A few years ago, there was quite a lot of, I suppose, interest in aqueous dispersion coatings for both paper and paperboard packaging.

Whilst this sounds very harmless, these water-based dispersion coatings, which are known as aqueous, often contain styrene or acrylates.

So they're not really as harmless as they seem in a lot of cases.

And those plastic or synthetic chemicals are linked to health issues, and there's more evidence being built around this.

So I think it is really important that we continue to have innovation in the space.

We continue to look at both the properties of the materials and the end of life.

On the regulation side of things, there's been some very recent updates, even in the last couple of weeks, And in the UK, the all party parliamentary group has launched a second report on microplastics.

And that report identifies an action plan with some key priority areas.

They found that 71% of recorded litter in the UK is plastic.

So there definitely needs to be a renewed focus on both combating the material type and the end of life management without vilifying plastic as a material, because clearly it's very important and continue to play a role as a material choice.

But there needs to be a focus on how we combat the different elements and the different parts of the value chain.

When it comes to bio-based coatings, definitely can be very advantageous for the right use case.

And coming from renewable feedstocks, that is a big plus.

What we would say as well is that the bio-based coatings can vary quite significantly.