HLP Klearfold will continue to offer Klearfold® RPET30, a plastic carton with 30% PCR content that it has had for the past decade. Up until now, Klearfold® RPET30 has been the highest percentage of PCR available for plastic folding cartons in North America. According to Steve Frazier, President of HLP Klearfold, “When we began making 30% box-grade PCR RPET ten years ago, we arrived at 30% content as a proper balance between our customers’ sustainability aspirations at that time and our ability to produce RPET with no perceptible difference in quality as compared to our virgin APET. Today, many major brand owners and retailers are developing more stringent sustainability goals, many to be implemented by 2025, and our 100% PCR plastic folding cartons can help them get there.”
All of this was made possible because HLP Klearfold began a vertical integration program in 2009, investing in custom extruders designed to make premium-quality, box-grade plastics exclusively. Having these extruders has enabled the company to produce RPET with 30% PCR that is indistinguishable from virgin PET. Today, thanks to this capability, combined with carefully and locally sourced postconsumer PET waste, HLP Klearfold is able to produce box-grade RPET with 100% PCR, with no meaningful sacrifice in quality or performance, and without compromising the high marketing appeal of Klearfold cartons.
“This expansion of PCR offerings enables HLP Klearfold to offer something for everyone across the visual packaging spectrum,” states Frazier. “For customers with sustainability goals of varying levels and timelines, we now offer superior quality PCR options of either 30% or 100%, depending on the ambitiousness of their programs. Because the collection and processing of postconsumer waste is more costly, these two PCR content Klearfold carton options are priced at commensurate premiums to virgin PET.”
