Precise to the Percentage Point

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Outstanding barrier properties, hygiene, security, convenience, sustainability and the possibility of precisely dosing quantities – these are the big benefits of aluminium tubes. The industry feels up to today’s economic challenges and has disclosed impressive figures for 2008 despite the crisis.

Slim is “in” also applies to packaging these days. The trend towards slim packaging has been evident for decades now. Aluminium tubes are particularly compelling here and boast many other added benefits. Be it for cosmetic, pharmaceutical or technical products, for foodstuffs or household products: tubes are unbreakable, lightweight, clean and handy.

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A great invention

Aluminium tubes were invented over 165 years ago by the American painter John Rand, who is reported to have been annoyed when his paints kept drying up on the palette. This is why he invented a kind of archetype aluminium tube, from which it was easy to squeeze out the required quantity. On 11 October 1841 he filed a patent for this. As time went by other investors developed ever more sophisticated shapes, functionalities and designs. 1886 saw the first attempts being made to fill tubes with other products than paints – the first being toothpaste. This is how more and more products found their way into a tube. Since 1913 aluminium tubes have been produced industrially and have become all-time classics “gracing” just about every PoS bay today.

An internal investigation carried out by the European Tube Manufacturers’ Association“ (etma) confirmed that aluminium tubes continue to be considered premium packaging materials in the consumer goods industry. Their benefits, of course, include good barrier properties, hygiene, security, convenience, sustainability and the possibility of precise dosing.

Design awareness needs to be raised

Although tubes are currently also “gearing up” in terms of looks the need to develop expertise in the scope for design, printing and decoration is still high. Although not only round but also square-edged tubes are on offer today, etma complains that tube design far from fully exhausts the technical and creative potential of this packaging material. Square tubes, for example, can be manufactured using the customary extrusion process first to produce a round shape which is then “squared” with the help of a correspondingly shaped die prior to packaging. Even 16-cornered tubes can be produced these days and the way should now be paved towards even more extraordinary designs and a far greater diversity in printing technologies/motifs. Because it is above all products with eye-catching features that branded product manufacturers now demand.

Sustainable environmental protection

Aluminium tubes are also a convincing option in terms of sustainability, recycling and environmental protection. Today, every product is “put under the microscope” and tubes need not fear competition here. Aluminium is one of the raw materials abundantly available in nature and easily recyclable without any loss of material. 8% of the earth’s crust consists of aluminium making this natural resource the eighth most frequent element in the mantle. Moreover, all packaging materials from light alloys are managed in a closed-loop recycling system today. By using recyclable aluminium up to 95% of the energy required for producing primary aluminium can be saved.

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2008: Growth despite the crisis

The European tube industry managed to close fiscal year 2008 with impressive figures – despite the already extremely difficult 4th quarter: the etma members produced 10.394 billion tubes in total. This means a 3% increase over the previous year. Almost 80% of all tubes produced in Europe are manufactured by etma members. 40% of the market are accounted for by aluminium tubes while 30% each are plastics and laminate tubes.

Happy birthday

etma is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Established in Paris on 25 April 1959, it included companies from Germany and England back then. As early as 1960 firms from France, Italy and Austria joined. By 1970 tube producers from Spain, Portugal, Greece, Finland and Sweden had joined its ranks. While etma members produced roughly two billion tubes back in 1960, their annual output rose to three billion in 1980, to seven billion in 2000 and exceeded ten billion tubes last year. At present, 52 companies from 19 countries are members of etma.