International Pharmaceutical Industry journal speaks with CurTec’s John Jansen, Head of Global Marketing, and Marc Martens, Marketing Communications Manager, on the company’s Eco Lite drums, sustainable packaging strategy, and vision for the future of pharmaceutical and chemical packaging.
About CurTec
CurTec is an international company with Dutch roots that was founded in 1991, with its origins tracing back to 1949. Over the years, the company evolved from an industrial glass container manufacturer into a GMP certified packaging company.
By focusing consistently on quality, CurTec naturally gravitated towards the pharmaceutical industry, where the robustness and precision of its products proved an excellent fit for the sector’s strict requirements. This focus led to further specialisation, including the development of products tailored to pharmaceutical needs, more rigorous testing, and continuous upgrades to facilities to meet growing industry demand.
20 – 30 years ago, CurTec supplied plastic packaging solutions to a much wider range of industries than it does today. Over time, the company refined its focus and found that it performs best when three criteria align: when the product it protects is of high value, when it needs protection from the environment, and when it could pose a risk to the environment if not properly contained.
When all three of these conditions are met, CurTec offers an ideal solution. This is particularly true in the pharmaceutical sector, where high-value active pharmaceutical ingredients and excipients often need both protection and containment to ensure safety and product integrity.
Your new ECO LITE drums are described as “a new standard in sustainable packaging”. How did the design strategy evolve and what were the key trade-offs between sustainability, performance and cost?
This has been a particularly interesting project. Environmental regulations are becoming increasingly stringent, with measures such as the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) already being implemented and rolled out across EU member states. In response, CurTec challenged its R&D and technical teams to develop solutions that would be fully compliant with PPWR requirements, not by 2030 but right now.
The brief was to design a product from the ground up with sustainability as the main focus while ensuring that none of CurTec’s core attributes, such as robustness, reliability and high performance, were compromised. The team examined every aspect of the design process to determine what was truly essential for the pharmaceutical industry, seeking the right balance between environmental responsibility and product functionality.
ECO LITE drums are the result of that work. It reflects the company’s long-standing commitment to quality and innovation while setting a new benchmark for sustainable pharmaceutical packaging.
How do the features of the ECO LITE drums translate into measurable benefits for pharmaceutical and chemical packaging users (for example carbon footprint, space savings, handling)?
The challenge set for R&D was to see how light we could make the product without losing any of its essential qualities. The result was impressive: ECO LITE drums are 25% lighter than an equivalent product, which immediately reduces material use and transport emissions. But that was just the starting point.
We then examined which features could be simplified or redesigned. The gasket, which ensures tightness and low moisture vapour transmission, was replaced by a moulded version. The mounted handles were replaced by moulded handgrips. This allowed the entire drum to be made from a single material, HDPE, which significantly improves recyclability. ECO LITE drums are now 100% recyclable, offering a clear environmental advantage.
The team went a step further by introducing partially bio-based plastic to replace a portion of virgin HDPE. This innovation not only helps meet future PPWR recyclability targets but also reduces the product’s carbon footprint. On average, ECO LITE drums offer a 30% lower CO2 footprint, with some SKUs achieving reductions of up to 35–36%. Importantly, all performance requirements for pharmaceutical and food safety applications remain fully intact.
Another key advantage is that the drums are nestable, delivering a 10–15% efficiency improvement in transport and storage. The exact benefit depends on the pallet configuration, but the design ensures optimal use of space when handled on standard Euro or CP3 pallets.
Throughout the development process, maintaining strength and robustness was non-negotiable. We insisted that the new design achieve the same UN-X certification as existing products, ensuring top-level safety and compliance. This challenged the R&D team to explore new geometries and wall thickness distributions that preserved strength while reducing material use. The final shape is slightly rounder, which enhances pressure resistance and stacking performance.
Finally, the investment in new manufacturing equipment played an important role. The updated machinery allows for precise control of material distribution during blow moulding, avoiding issues like bottom-heavy sections and enabling a consistent wall thickness from top to bottom. Combined with advanced engineering, this has allowed CurTec to achieve both lightweighting and exceptional product integrity.
How does CurTec ensure that the ECO LITE drums meet industry standards for safety, compatibility, cleanliness and regulatory acceptance?
We ensure compliance by adhering strictly to all relevant regulated tests and certification requirements. ECO LITE drums undergo formal UN testing, which includes verification of strength, drop resistance and moisture proof performance. We conduct water vapour transmission rate tests to confirm that barrier properties meet pharmaceutical and chemical storage standards.
In addition to these mandatory tests, we perform transport simulations to assess how the containers perform under real-world logistics conditions. This is not a regulatory requirement, but it provides valuable data to guarantee product integrity during handling and shipping.
Traceability and food safety are also key areas of focus. Each batch of material is tested to ensure compliance with chemical composition standards, including confirmation that the introduction of bio-based materials does not affect performance or safety.
Beyond product-specific testing, CurTec operates within a robust ISO and GMP-certified quality framework. This system sets out defined testing procedures, continuous monitoring and staff training requirements. When we state that our products are clean, safe and certified, it is backed by ongoing verification, not just a one-time certification. Maintaining constant quality assurance is central to how we work and ensures the ECO LITE drums meet the highest industry expectations.
How does CurTec see the role of packaging evolving over the next 3–5 years, and how do ECO LITE drums fit into that vision?
Within the pharmaceutical sector, qualification and change control processes can take considerable time. Being ready several years ahead of regulatory deadlines gives our customers a real advantage, allowing them to prepare for compliance while maintaining operational stability. We see this as an opportunity to support our partners and to act as a “category captain” in promoting awareness of the role secondary packaging can play in sustainability.
While primary packaging often receives most of the attention, there is significant potential for reducing CO2 emissions and achieving sustainability goals through secondary packaging. ECO LITE drums represent the first step in that direction, and our vision is to gradually expand this concept across other sizes and product lines, replacing older designs with more sustainable alternatives.
We also recognise that the trend toward sustainability must remain practical. It has to be affordable and, above all, safe. For our customers, safety certification is non-negotiable, and we fully align with that. Our aim is not to persuade customers through words but to remove the barriers that might prevent them from choosing a sustainable option. If a product performs as well as or better than its predecessor and comes at a comparable cost, there should be no reason not to adopt it.
That is the philosophy behind ECO LITE drums: a sustainable, high-performance solution that makes the responsible choice the easy one.
What are the next steps in CurTec’s product future, beyond ECO LITE drums?
Looking ahead, our immediate focus is on ensuring the successful adoption of ECO LITE drums. That means working closely with customers, gathering real-world feedback, and developing strong case studies that demonstrate the value of the solution in practice. From there, our goal is to extend the concept further, continuing to invest in new types of machinery that can deliver even more sustainable outcomes.
We are already exploring alternative materials and investigating how to incorporate recycled content alongside bio-based and virgin feedstocks. Establishing closed-loop systems with customers is another key ambition, enabling us to take back and reuse our own materials within a circular framework. These developments are already in progress, though naturally they will take time to refine and scale.
The broader mindset of designing for sustainability will absolutely continue to guide us. While ECO LITE drums represent a new generation of products, we also see opportunities to improve existing lines that have become long-time customer favourites. We are not abandoning them but evolving them, making sure they align with modern sustainability standards without compromising on performance or compliance.
Change in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries can be slow, largely due to strict qualification and regulatory processes. However, there comes a point when progress becomes necessary, and we see ourselves as part of driving that shift. It is what makes our work so engaging. We are proud to be part of a company that prioritises innovation and environmental responsibility over competing solely on price.
At the end of the day, it may still be plastic, but it is plastic with purpose. Products like ECO LITE drums prove that meaningful CO2 reductions and sustainable practices are achievable without sacrificing quality or reliability.
For more information – https://www.curtec.com/
