Arjowiggins launches sustainable translucent barrier paper

Sylvicta has been proven to preserve the quality of food and cosmetics just as well as conventional plastics, while ensuring limited impact on the environment.

The important advantage of this new product is a high barrier to oxygen, the leading cause of food spoilage. It can reduce food waste by prolonging shelf life during the transportation, retail and consumer phases of the value chain.

Through precision fiber refining, Arjowiggins’ R&D teams have developed this unique translucent paper with a natural bonding, without the need of any harmful chemicals. The result is a paper with a barrier to oxygen, aroma, mineral oils and fatty foodstuffs.

When running through conventional converting lines, Sylvicta can be foil-stamped, glued, embossed, printed in offset, gravure, and flexography, metallized, or coated with heat or cold-sealable materials.

Additionally, Arjowiggins is working with packaging converters to open up a further array of applications, from pouches for dry fruits, bags for salads, sachets for solid soap, sacks for pet food and flow-packs for chocolate bars, all the way through to metallized versions of Sylvicta for butter or margarine packaging.

Sylvicta offers barrier packaging option that enables reducing or even eradicating the use of plastics in packaging applications, according to the company, describing it as 'the ideal solution for creating a globally sustainable, circular economy, especially as it can integrate into existing recycling schemes'.

‘Despite the ongoing movement towards more sustainable packaging solutions, plastics still remain a popular choice, largely for practical reasons. Until now, most of the existing offer, mainly in single-use packaging, use unrecyclable, multi-layered laminates incorporating plastics or aluminum foil,’ said Christophe Jordan, managing director of the translucent papers division at Arjowiggins.

‘With Sylvicta, such options can be turned into fully recyclable, compostable and biodegradable paper packaging. The product is simply revolutionary - it can help to create the circular economy society we all desire,’ added Jordan.

Sylvicta is FSC and PEFC-certified, produced on a site that’s ISO 14001-compliant, and is carbon-offset through the World Land Trust’s Carbon Balanced program.