Navigating cold chain supply within the market scope of the life sciences industry demands uncompromising performance. Temperature excursions, packaging failures and inconsistent thermal protection can jeopardize product integrity, create compliance issues and risk patient safety.
There is a large carbon footprint associated with shipping critical products across the world and companies face growing pressure to reduce their environmental impact to meet corporate and global sustainability goals.
Sustainability challenges in pharmaceutical cold chain
Pharmaceutical shipments often travel long distances, sometimes to aggressively remote locations, across multiple climate zones, remaining in transit for extended periods of time. These conditions require packaging that delivers consistent, repeatable thermal performance—often under strict qualification and validation protocols. To date, single use Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) has been the go-to solution that ticks those boxes.
However, traditional single use EPS packaging can contribute significantly to waste generation, excessive material consumption and transportation emissions.
Globally, an estimated 4.5 to 5.0 million metric tons of EPS packaging are produced and make it onto the market annually. Of that total, approximately 1.2 to 1.5 million metric tons are recycled yearly, resulting in a global recycling rate of roughly 24–30%, which translates to millions of tons of EPS going to landfill every year.
North America mirrors this global picture. Roughly 300,000 metric tons of EPS packaging are produced annually across the United States and Canada. In 2022, approximately 76,500 metric tons were recycled, representing an overall recycling rate of about 25–26%. However, only 9–10% of that total came from post-consumer sources—the packaging most likely to be discarded after a single use.
Recycled EPS in cold chain packaging
How do we raise those recycling rates? How do we disrupt the single-use EPS to landfill machine? Can it be done?
It is being done.
Manufacturers of EPS products have been on the front lines facing the challenges with what to do with end-of-life, single use EPS packaging solutions. While reuse and refurbishment programs exist, the implementation of a recycling program that allows for single-use EPS packaging to be broken down, recycled and put back into products is where the future in sustainable packaging lies.
Such a system is currently operating under the Integreon Global umbrella of business units. Cryopak, partnered with sister companies NexKemia, a manufacturer of EPS resins and Eco-Captation, a specialized post-consumer EPS recycling company, are the pillars of a closed loop Circular Economy model at work.
By capturing recycled EPS through Eco-Captation, breaking it down and sending it to NexKemia to be mixed in with existing EPS resins, then molded and shipped to Cryopak for end-user sale, a fully sustainable, transparent and proven value proposition is in full effect.
At scale.
Further, to reach closed loop Circular Economy compliance, pickup of used EPS packaging for delivery directly to the recycler, allows for full traceability and transparency through the process.
Along with recycling and reusing single use EPS materials, the need to offer more sustainable products is a critical part of future solutions from manufacturers and service providers.
Sustainable packaging using graphite-expanded polystyrene
Thermal efficiency is essential in pharmaceutical cold chain packaging but has lacked a vehicle to deliver both high performing thermal performance and sustainability. Graphite-expanded polystyrene (GPS) is a robust material that improves thermal efficiency while providing a unique sustainable solution to the industry.
A new to market GPS resin – NexBlu – incorporates recycled materials into its packaging. While it can be applied to existing packaging solutions, such as vacuum insulated panels inside of corrugate, it can also be used as a standalone packaging solution.
Made of 30% recycled materials, NexBlu packaging provides a robust, reusable product that reduces carbon emissions through higher payloads and superior thermal performance making it a viable and unique sustainable shipping solution.
For these specific packaging solutions, the cooler utilizes ring extensions that can be added to the top of the cooler, extending thermal protection as well as larger payloads. While the cooler itself is sustainable, the flexibility of ring attachments and larger payload capacity leads directly to lowering overall packaging volume, reducing transport costs and emissions.
Innovation drives economic growth, why shouldn’t it drive sustainable growth as well? The implementation of innovative products, coupled with a Circular Economy modeled approach to shipping and recycling, is the future of not only cold chain packaging supply chain, but all of supply chain.
