TricorBraun, in cooperation with Silgan Plastics, has developed a new lightweight, low-profile tube and closure system. The tube improves sustainability, logistics efficiencies, and costs—all without requiring brand owners to change their filling operations or consumers to change their usage behaviors.
The tube features a snap-on tube head weighing as much as 30% less than a similar-sized traditional tube head. The tube uses a 2-in. eco low-profile flip-top closure made by Italian closure manufacturer Giflor that weighs 50% less than a similar diameter traditional closure. The resulting eco low-profile tube/closure system is a minimum of 20% lighter than traditional combinations holding the same volume of product.
Silgan’s low-profile PE tube head uses less resin than traditional offerings, and Giflor’s new low-profile PP closure uses up to 54% less resin than its traditional counterpart. Together this combination is said to deliver an overall material savings of 30%. This reduction in resin translates directly into dollars saved, since marketers save up to 10,000 lb of resin for one million tubes.
The reduced tube length also results in logistics efficiencies, such as up to 25% more tubes in a carton, more tube/closure combinations per truckload, and reduced freight costs. While savings depend upon the selected tube length as well as the tube/closure combination currently used, customers have calculated up to 20% savings with the same fluid-oz package.
Savings are not only financial but environmental: The new tube/closure combination significantly reduces the volume of fuel required and the amount of truck-generated CO2 released into the atmosphere.
