DUBLIN (News release) -- Smurfit Kappa has made a simple but far-reaching change to its Vitop^® taps. The taps used on its Bag-in-Box products are now free from carbon black pigment, making them much easier to recycle.

Smurfit Kappa's two largest European Bag-in-Box plants in France and Spain are now using the Vitop^® Natural, a tap with a translucent body that was introduced two years ago as a sustainable alternative to the carbon black Vitop^®.

As the carbon black pigment is not always detected by the optical sorting near-infrared (NIR) scanners used by many recycling facilities, it can be classified as an unwanted component and can also give recycled plastic an unattractive grey colour.

Didier Pontcharraud, CEO of Vitop, commented: "We aim to design our packaging in such a way that it is easy to collect, sort and recycle, and it is important for us to promote this on a larger scale. Smurfit Kappa takes on board the recommendations of the plastic packaging resource management authorities that we work with."

"Switching all of our bags from carbon black Vitop to Vitop^® Natural improves our internal sustainability targets. By limiting the number of batch orders we considerably optimised our production process which has resulted in a lower waste rate," added Dominique Gessat, General Manager of Smurfit Kappa Bag-in-Box France.

Vitop^® Natural, which can also be produced from bio-based materials on request, has been very well received since it was launched. It is also available in a compact version with reduced plastic weight.

Vitop is the leading provider of Bag-in-Box closure solutions with over 5 billion taps sold all over the world.