The Italian pharma packaging manufacturer, Bormioli Pharma, is promoting ‘green’ plastic solutions compliant with the European Pharmacopoeia and also making sustainability a key topic of its new corporate innovation strategy.
 
Specifically, Bormioli has developed a new product: a bottle made of 100% pharma-grade rPET, which features the same performance of its virgin counterpart (PET). According to the company, the high quality of its post-consumer recycled PET makes it transformable exactly like the virgin PET, allowing the creation of a highly-customized solution according to customer needs.
 
The product has also been rated suitable for food contact, featuring an excellent transparency, low levels of contamination, as well as physical and mechanical properties comparable to virgin PET. The company has also developed cups and spoons in food-grade PLA, and fully degradable within 60 days in industrial compost facilities.
 
In addition, the company said its goal is to obtain by 2023 pharma-grade certification for a wide range of solutions currently used in the nutraceutical and cosmetics industry. Among these are green polyethylene containers made with 100% bio-based plastic, and BioPET bottles, containing up to 30% of material coming from renewable sources. 
 
“Sustainability is a hot topic on the public agenda, but it is still not considered a requirement by the pharma industry,” said Fabio Silvestri, head of product strategy and planning, Bormioli Pharma. “We are pioneers in this matter and we aim to promote sustainability throughout the pharma value chain, partnering with companies to develop sustainable programs as well as customized and compliant solutions with an open innovation approach. This means involving clients, as well as end users, startups, research centers and universities in our R&D programs, creating a porous environment that is able to generate new value for all the stakeholders.”
 
Developing greener plastic solutions is just a part of a broader sustainability strategy by Bormioli, with the company setting new corporate sustainability targets to be achieved within the 2020-2023 strategic plan, such as:
 
• Increasing the use of recycled materials, from 2% to 30% throughout the company’s packaging solutions;
• Replacing single-use packaging with fully biodegradable solutions, compatibly with future market requirements; and
• Enhancing energy saving in production, on new plastic injection machines (-50%), plant lighting (-30%) and on new glass furnaces (-20%).