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Packaging Innovation: Gluing Six-Pack Cans of Beer Together

The Nature MultiPack system is an alternative to the plastic rings

By Rain Noe - February 4, 2021

in Packaging

Since their invention in 1960, the plastic six-pack ring has gone from being a convenient way to tote beer to becoming the scourge of the seas. By 1987, they were estimated to be killing over a million marine mammals and avians each year.

By Staecker - Own work, Public Domain

By 1994, the EPA required the rings be degradable. Manufacturers complied by making them out of plastic that breaks down over time when exposed to light, but animals can still become ensnared before the rings break down, and can still consume the microplastic particles that the rings break down into.

It would be better to do away with the rings altogether, and it took a forward-thinking German filling and packaging firm to come up with a sensible alternative. Their Nature MultiPack system ditches the rings, and instead forms cans of beer into a six-pack by gluing them together.

Each can is spot-glued to its two nearest neighbors. The glue is strong enough to hold the cans together, but weak enough that they can be easily pried apart.

There is still some plastic involved; a tape-like strip is adhered to the six-packs to serve as a carrying handle. This must be peeled off, and the company makes no mention of it being recyclable.

Danish brewery Carlsberg began trialing the system in Europe in 2018, calling it the Snap Pack.

In case you're wondering about the glue's impact downstream: "We have done tests that show there is no impact [of the glue] on the recyclability," Carlsberg sustainability director Simon Boas Hoffmeyer told National Geographic.

Whether the system will catch on in the U.S. or not remains to be seen.

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John Zurowski

4 years ago

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Slight issue if you only want 1 can is that it looks like you can only split the pack on double or triple rows. Forces you to drink with someone else which isn't bad :)

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Wubbo Jong

4 years ago

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Interesting, I'm not sure how this will work in the grocery store.
This could result in many lose cans laying around. I guess time will tell. For now thumbs up.
But if you realy want to make an impact on the enviroment with your drinking habits:
Drink tapwater!
If your current drinking water is not of the best quality, enforce your local government to make it a top priority. Because in making soda's en beer a lot of fresh water is wasted on production.

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Billy Mack

4 years ago

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This is interesting. I wonder if the glue spots have any impact on the recycling process of the cans.

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- N G
  
  Billy Mack
  
  4 years ago
  
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  I wonder how hard design and marketing had to fight with production for the specific individual can rotation to form the unitary logo. Worth it though.
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