St. Regis helps save trees with new SLS-certified 3-ply tea sack

On left: The presentation of the Carbon Consulting Company’s assessment of the new 3-ply paper (from left): CCC CEO Sanith De S. Wijeyeratne, Head of Sales and Marketing Vasantha Wanigasooriya, Product Manager Dilan Srichandrasekara and St. Regis Packaging Product Manager Chanaka Athukorala, On right: Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI) Director General/CEO T.G. Gamini Dharmawardena (right) presenting the SLS Certificate for the 3-ply paper sack to Vasantha Wanigasooriya

St. Regis Packaging, the first company to obtain SLS certification for Rigid T Sacks and Multiwall paper sacks for bulk packaging of tea, has achieved yet another breakthrough by reducing the environmental impact of one of its paper sacks, significantly supporting the tea industry’s efforts to go green.

The invention of the new paper sack coincides with the 150th anniversary of Sri Lanka’s tea industry.

An assessment conducted by the Carbon Consulting Company (CCC), a leading provider of corporate sustainability solutions, confirms that the new three-ply paper sack developed by St. Regis Packaging helps save a considerable number of trees by using less paper.

It is estimated that almost 2,000 metric tonnes of paper is imported annually to produce approximately three million multiwall paper sacks used in the tea industry. With the new product, the same number of bags of the same quality and barrier properties can be produced with a 15% saving on paper, the company said.

The amount of carbon sequestered as result of the new product will be equivalent to almost 4.2 metric tonnes of CO2 per year.

“This is an important breakthrough that will carry a great deal of weight in the environment conscious markets of the world for pure Sri Lankan tea,” St. Regis Packaging Head of Sales and Marketing Vasantha Wanigasooriya said. “We already knew that our product is more environmentally friendly, but what is important here is that our claim is now externally validated by a recognised, independent body. It is an added level of assurance for our buyers, just like all our other accreditations.”

“Going forward, we will progressively make a complete change in the market through our products, and our team will continue to look for ways to make our entire product portfolio more sustainable. I thank the team from the Carbon Consulting Company for helping us quantify the positive impact of our invention,” he said.  

Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI) Director General/CEO Gamini Dharmawardena, who presented St. Regis Packaging with a certificate extending the company’s SLS certification to cover the new paper sack, congratulated the company on its achievement through product development, and commended St. Regis on its commitment to continuous improvement and catering to the needs of the tea industry. “I applaud St. Regis for taking the leadership to set a benchmark in the packaging industry,” Dharmawardena said.

Besides inventing the Rigid T. Sack, St. Regis has many other firsts to its name, including becoming the world’s first manufacturer of bulk packaging for tea to receive the ISO22000:2005 certification and FSSC22000, currently the highest food packaging certification in the world.