Lubricant producer Castrol has partnered with Pulpex in an effort to reduce the amount of plastic used in its packaging.
Pulpex innovates in the field of paper packaging. It has developed ground-breaking technology to make bottles from wood pulp, which is sourced from sustainable materials that come from responsibly managed forests, resulting in packaging with a carbon footprint that is up to 30% lower than an equivalent glass or PET product.
The Chief Marketing Officer at Castrol, A.S. Ramchander, said the company has dedicated itself to investigating all of its product lifecycles in order to:
“See how they can be improved, extended, reused or recycled. We’re very excited to be working with Pulpex to explore how their technology, initially designed for the FMCG category, can be developed for lubricants as a replacement for our existing high-density polyethylene (HDPE) bottles.”
Pulpex developed its technology initially for fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), but it will be adapted to suit products like commercial vehicle oil and other lubricants. Ramchander said that initial work in this direction has been very encouraging.
The development fits in with Castrol’s PATH360 strategy, which it launched last month for improving the sustainability of its products by decreasing their associated carbon emissions and reducing waste. More specifically, it wants to cut its plastic footprint in half by the end of the decade, and the use of alternative materials will sit alongside the use of recycled plastics and new packaging designs that require less plastic and can be shipped more efficiently.
