Smurfit takes green approach

By Michael Kavanagh
Published: June 22 2009 03:00

The offices of Clive Bowers, chief executive of Smurfit Kappa UK's corrugated division, serve as a shrine to the strength and versatility of corrugated cardboard packaging, writes Michael Kavanagh .
The company's Yate site near Bristol is where pre- perforated packaging is dispatched to customers.
Here various grades of paper are printed, fluted and glued to produce the light but robust packaging that is used increasingly not just to protect goods in transit, but also to promote at point of sale.
As an industry, European paper package makers are responsible for "planting more trees than we are cutting down", Mr Bowers says. The ability of cellulose fibre to be reprocessed up to eight times means up to 80 per cent of European corrugated boxes can be sourced from recovered paper.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009