Paper instead of plastic film?

The world’s biggest brands are announcing the end of plastic film.

Not so fast. Although a few applications really can be moved today.

Bedding, duvets, clothing, toys: all of it is supposed to go into paper. Ideally before August 2026, when the PPWR comes into force. From the outside it sounds like a simple purchasing decision: keep the same pack dimensions, swap plastic for paper, done.

And this, in my experience, is exactly where projects most often fall apart. Because paper is the easiest part of the puzzle, if it is PE-coated. If it isn’t, this turns out to be the very field where Kablonex has real successes and experience.

If you are looking for technical support in moving from film to paper, you have come to the right place.

The myth: “paper is just a material change on the order”

An order can look harmless. “We’re moving from a film sleeve to a paper sleeve, dimensions unchanged, the rest is on your side.”

Film forgives almost everything. It stretches, adapts to the shape, seals at low temperature and runs on practically any packaging machine. Paper has none of these properties. What it has instead is stiffness, fibre direction, an overlap that has to be glued, and behaviour on the line that has to be predicted before production starts.

One paper packaging SKU is really four decisions: printing, forming, gluing and compatibility with the customer’s packaging line. When a duvet manufacturer packs 150 metres of web per minute on an automated line, the paper has to keep up with that pace without jams. If each of these links sits with a different supplier, you are coordinating four companies for one bag.

You can change the material in a day. The process takes several months.

Where these projects crack

Failure most often sits in two places: printing and geometry.

Let’s start with printing. Some suppliers print on the finished, formed tube. The result is visible to the naked eye: uneven forming, distortion on the overlap. A premium home & living brand won’t accept that, because the pack ends up on the shelf next to a product costing several hundred PLN. We print the other way round: flexo, up to ten colours, on the flat web, before the paper is formed into a sleeve. The flat web gives even, repeatable printing at shelf quality.

The second trap is geometry. A paper sleeve has to fit the customer’s specific packaging line, not the supplier’s average standard. The tube former (the machine) forms a flat or side-gusseted sleeve, on web widths up to 1,430 mm, at speeds up to 150 m/min, from 60-100 g/m² kraft. This lets you build the pack around the product’s dimensions and the machine that will pack it.

With a well-chosen structure you can go down to 70 g/m² without losing strength, which genuinely lowers the cost per unit.
Depending on the application, of course.

The recycling claim trap

“Recyclable in the paper stream.” That one sentence can cost a brand its reputation.

The PPWR tightens not only the paper requirement but also the scrutiny of what you write on the pack. Mono-paper really does go into the paper stream. A sleeve with a film barrier (paper laminated with a thin layer of PE) not necessarily, and that depends on the country and on the plastic content threshold in the collection system concerned. A brand that prints “paper, recyclable” while using a two-layer structure with film inside exposes itself to an accusation of greenwashing, which today is easy to report and expensive in its consequences.

The construction of the pack decides what claim you are allowed to make.
With NEX-PAPER from Kablonex it’s simple: 100% paper.

Why one plant beats a chain of intermediaries

Count the links.

Printing at one company, forming at a second, gluing at a third, finishing at a fourth. Four quality control points, four lead times to add up, four audits for your customer to go through. Every handover between suppliers is a place where something gets lost: a dimension, a deadline or responsibility.

With us, this chain sits under one roof: extrusion and printing, forming on the tube former, gluing, finishing, and at the end recycling in our own plant. One point of responsibility for quality and delivery date.

We worked on just such a project with one of the world’s largest retailers of furniture and home textiles. Duvets and pillows, previously packed in a film sleeve. They moved to a paper sleeve, formed, printed and glued in one production sequence, from FSC raw material, without juggling four subcontractors.

The same mechanism can be seen at a global maker of construction toys, which replaced the film bags inside its boxes with paper ones. The difficulty wasn’t the paper, but whether the bag opens just as easily and runs on the same finishing line. With 55 years in production and 18 lines, we can take an entire process like this on ourselves.

The fewer company boundaries in one pack, the fewer things can go wrong.

Before you announce “disappearing film”

If you are on the brand side and have a move to paper planned for this year, ask your supplier five questions. The answers will tell you more than any presentation.

1. Do you print on the flat web or on the finished tube?
2. Do you form the sleeve to fit my packaging line, or do I have to adapt to your standard?
3. What construction: mono-paper or paper with a barrier? And what recycling claim follows from that?
4. How many links of the chain are in-house, and how many with subcontractors?
5. Do you hold FSC with your own licence code, or is it “raw material from a certified supplier”?

If the questions on printing, line fit and number of links get evasive answers, it’s a sign you have found an intermediary. And an intermediary won’t take responsibility for how the bag behaves on your machine. This distinction will decide the delivery date and who answers when something goes wrong.

Reality check

Paper isn’t difficult. What’s difficult is the process that turns a reel of kraft into a finished, printed and glued pack matched to your line. You only see this difference when the first batch goes onto the customer’s packaging machine.

Problem: you have announced the move to paper, and the current bag won’t run on the line or doesn’t look like premium packaging.

Solution: send us the parameters of your product and packaging line, and we will prepare a test sleeve in the target construction.

Result: you check machinability and appearance on your own equipment before you sign a contract.

See how this looks in your industry: Furniture and wood processing and FMCG and food processing. On each page: what goes wrong, what we calculate instead of price per kg, and implementations with figures.