Radienz Living Adopts Paperboard Carton for Laundry Pods
Radienz Living and GPI will debut an all-paper, child-resistant carton for laundry pods, aiming to cut plastic, boost pallet efficiency, and meet safety standards in club-store and perhaps e-commerce channels.
Interior view of the CleanClose carton showing the specialty fold-and-glue structure and audible “click” closure for child resistance.
Graphic Packaging International
Laundry detergent pods impose a handful of unique requirements from their packaging systems. They require structural strength through the supply chain and distribution, to protect sometimes fragile pod product often containing viscous liquids or gels. They need certified child resistance for the home since the colorful pods can resemble candy to youngsters. At the same time, seniors—perhaps arthritic or with a similar condition—still need to be able to easily open the package to access the pods. And of course, recyclability at end of life is becoming both a consumer and a retailer demand.
Plastic (PET and HDPE) tubs and multilayer flexible pouches have been the standard way to check many of those boxes. Radienz Living, a North American contract manufacturer and packager and private-label supplier of pods, is pursuing a recyclable paperboard alternative developed with Graphic Packaging International (GPI).
The two companies developed CleanClose, a paperboard carton incorporating GPI’s ChildBlock closure. The package is certified child-resistant under U.S. 16 CFR 1700.20 and designed to be recyclable in curbside paper streams. For launch, the format targets club-store counts—roughly 70 to 150 pods—and is intended to merchandise directly from pallets with minimal added protective material.
Radienz splits its production between private-label and contract manufacturing/packaging customers and does not sell its own house brands.
“This particular box was designed mostly with the club store size retail market in mind,” Pascanik says. “There are some brands and retail customers in other channels that might use something close to that, but the first priority was those club customers.”
He adds that distribution testing and palletization were central from the start. “We beat this box up any way you can imagine, to ensure that, yes, it can survive even the most challenging supply chains.”CleanClose paperboard carton with ChildBlock child-resistant closure, designed for large-count laundry pods in club-store channels.Graphic Packaging International
Material, printing, and closure
According to GPI, the structure is based on its PaceSetter recycled paperboard in a litho-laminated construction with a recycled-fiber top sheet. Box compression testing indicates the finished pack withstands more than 500 lb of top-load force; earlier public materials described it as designed to withstand 400 lb. Together, those points frame the strength platform used for club-store handling.
The pack uses offset lithography on the laminated top sheet, with aqueous inks and top coatings to maintain curbside recyclability. Building on prior experience with liquid pods in Europe, GPI notes, it eliminated specialty barrier treatments; the standard aqueous coating on the litho-laminated structure was used instead, deemed sufficient for the laundry pod use case. Press materials indicate the format is pre-qualified as “Widely Recyclable” under How2Recycle.
GPI characterizes the child-resistant feature as a specialty fold-and-glue sequence in the die-cut blank. More than 40 versions were developed before the certified design was finalized; the audible “click” on closure is inherent to the geometry rather than to atypical scoring tolerances.
“We’re multi-sensory beings,” Pascanik says. “The audible click is another point of reinforcement that you’ve closed the box. It’s a secondary reminder that you’ve used it the right way and you can feel good about walking away from the box.”
GPI also reports a specific behavior under leak scenarios—tests with increasing numbers of ruptured pods were used to observe liquid management. The paperboard’s absorptive properties sequestered leakage rather than allowing pooling typical of rigid plastic, which was part of the company’s argument for paperboard in this application.
Machinery and distribution
Because of the fold-and-glue sequence, forming is handled on custom equipment that provides a system solution—carton blanks are printed and die cut, shipped flat, then formed/filled at the customer site on the dedicated machine.
At Radienz, “there will be a carton erector installed on the end of the line to build this box,” Pascanik says. “We’re hoping to have that up and running sometime in the beginning of 2026.”
For line performance, GPI indicates intended forming/filling speeds meet or exceed current pod packaging capabilities. Pascanik emphasized the downstream focus on cube and materials in distribution.Self-palletizing CleanClose format eliminates the need for extra slip sheets or corner boards, improving cube efficiency in club-store distribution.Graphic Packaging International
“This box actually self-palletizes, so we can take unnecessary packaging out of today’s current pallet construction. It ships without added boards or corner protection and still merchandises in a clean and tidy fashion.”
On pallet density, GPI cites ≥10% more filled packs per pallet vs. flexible pouches; that claim appears both in the company’s answers and in earlier public materials. For distribution testing, GPI reports ISTA 3E performance after 72 hours of tropical conditioning, with no special challenges called out during certification.
The format has also been evaluated for e-commerce, perhaps even Amazon's SIOC (ships in own container) or wider SIPP (ships in product packaging) programs. GPI describes internal ISTA 6 results as successful and currently considers the pack prep-free.
“There really should be no reason you couldn’t slap a shipping label on any one side of this thing and send it on its way,” Pascanik says.
Scale, channels, and use cases
Radienz says the club-store count range (roughly 70–150 pods) fits the initial target but does not define the platform’s limits.
“We’ve started to seek certification on a smaller box as well that could be applicable in the liquid laundry category, in grocery or smaller format retailers,” Pascanik says. Separate child-resistance certification is required for each size.
Radienz sees potential category extensions in the packaging format, too.
“The carton can absolutely be used for the auto dish category as well,” Pascanik says. “We manufacture pods in that space too. Most of those tend to be powder-based and don’t come with the same child safety requirements, but this box could be used there if a customer wanted that feature.”
GPI notes the company aims to avoid over-packaging and reserves child-resistant paperboard formats only for products that require them. On the commercial side, Pascanik says he’s able to make a strong case to big box stores who might want to sell their private label laundry pods in these formats.
“There is a very quantifiable and measurable benefit from moving to this carton versus the plastic that’s on the shelf today,” he says. “Moving from a pouch to this carton eliminates plastic almost entirely. There’s a 10% efficiency in what you can get on a pallet by moving to this box. That’s real savings that can be passed on to the consumer or used to fuel initiatives within a business model.” PW
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CleanClose paperboard carton with ChildBlock child-resistant closure, designed for large-count laundry pods in club-store channels.Graphic Packaging International
