Huhtamaki, global provider of sustainable packaging solutions, has launched the Push Tab blister lid, the company's first-to-market, aluminium-free, mono-material PET blister lidding for the global pharmaceutical and healthcare industry.
Push Tab has been designed to meet the stringent safety requirements of highly regulated pharmaceutical and healthcare packaging, and provides the industry with a more sustainable alternative to traditional push-through blister packaging.
According to Huhtamaki, it will help deliver sustainable packaging solutions for the growing global healthcare industry, while importantly, maintaining functionality and efficiency.
Also, the company said that being made of mono-material PET, it significantly improves recyclability of the packaging, while remaining compatible with existing high performance blister packaging lines, without needing modifications or extra investment.
“The pharmaceutical industry is proactively searching for sustainable packaging solutions that enable recyclability,” said Tobias Fackler, senior manager of the healthcare business unit for flexible packaging at Huhtamaki.
“Since blister packaging traditionally contains multiple materials, it is difficult to recycle them in a single recycling stream. Push Tab blister lid solves this problem because it is made of mono PET.
“Push Tab runs on existing blister packaging lines and is a plug-and-play solution, which means no additional investment is needed for our customers.
“This newly developed unique technology makes PET based lid film pushable and secures easy access to the tablet for the consumer.”
Huhtamaki and its partner, Klockner Pentaplast, say they are bringing this first-to-market innovation to help the global healthcare and pharmaceutical sector meet sustainability targets and achieve market growth at the same time.
“We are proud to partner with Klockner Pentaplast to bring Push Tab blister lid to market and continue to shape the sustainable future of pharmaceutical and flexible packaging,” said Marco Hilty, president for flexible packaging at Huhtamaki.
“This innovation is designed as part of our blueloop platform, enabling us to speed up innovation and improve circularity in high-performance flexible packaging solutions.
“We are working hard to turn all our products into mono-material, fully recyclable structures. In addition, we are collaborating with partners across the value chain to deliver innovation that helps ensure that ambitious sustainability targets around the globe can be met.”
In 2021, European packaging sales in the healthcare category had an estimated value of EUR 1.4 billion, of which approximately 50 per cent were in blister packaging.
