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Crimped Paper ECO Capsule Triple.
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Crimped Paper ECO Flute.
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Crimped Paper ECO Active.
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Crimped Paper ECO Paper filter.
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Hugo Azinheira, Filtrona. Photo credit: Filtrona
There are strong signs that the industry is veering away from cellulose acetate and towards paper filters.
Singapore-based Filtrona is one of the world’s foremost filter manufacturers for tobacco products. And according to Hugo Azinheira, the company’s global director for innovation and ESG, a revolution is currently developing in this product segment: the return of crimped paper filters.
“We do believe that there is a trend now where the industry and some of the players are looking more seriously for plastic free substrates,” said Azinheira in a recent interview with Tobacco Asia. “And that’s where crimped paper rods would fit in.”
Back to the past
Interestingly, manufacturing tobacco filters from crimped, molded, and compressed specialty paper is not a new but rather a historical technology. Before cellulose acetate tow became ubiquitous in the tobacco industry in the 1950s, paper was in fact the material of choice for filters.
“[In 2024,] Filtrona celebrated 100 years since the first industrial filter was produced in our factory in the UK in 1924,” said Azinheira. “That first filter was actually made out of what we call a non-woven, which can be understood as being paper. The crimping actually prepares the paper, the substrate, then to be molded into that cylindrical [filter] rod.”
When Filtrona, in 2019, began looking into developing filter products that would be plastic-free, biodegradable, and sustainable to address the European Union’s Single Use Plastic Directive (SUPD) requirements, nonwoven substrates – i.e. paper – were recognized as being ideal for that purpose. The result of that r&d is the company’s expanding ECO range of filter products, all of them using crimped paper in one form or another.
“We looked into what the industry had been using in the past and before cellulose acetate tow, so we wouldn’t need to reinvent the wheel,” said Azinheira.
It was then when the company discovered that it still had machines from that pre-acetate period, and which had been originally engineered specifically for non-wovens.
“They obviously have been highly modified since the 1950s,” said Azinheira, “but we realized that we actually just needed to go back 50 years or so, look at the technology of that time and bring back those processes to start developing our ECO range, which currently comprises 16 different designs.” Sourcing substrates also proved not to be a problem, as Filtrona works with all main non-woven suppliers in the industry, including SWM, Delfort, and McAirlaids. “We can help any manufacturer to start their own transformation journey toward a plastic-free, sustainable [filter] future that way,” assured Azinheira.
Recycling or reusing cellulose acetate are impractical
Azinheira readily conceded that without the EU issuing its SUPD in 2021, things might not have kicked off at all – or at least they only would have kicked off a lot slower. SUPD already classifies cellulose acetate as plastic in its so-called “Reach Guidelines.” But EU lawmakers – for once – were wise enough not to ban cellulose acetate outright. SUPD leaves the options to either recycle or reuse the material. Both are of course nothing that can be achieved efficiently with current technology. Re-using discarded cigarette butts after sending them through some sort of cleaning process would be a no-go for hygienic reasons alone. As per recycling, “from a toxicological standpoint it is not possible with current technology,” according to Azinheira. “You can actually recycle cellulose acetate from discarded cigarette butts, but not for future use as filtration material. Apart from that, neither reusing nor recycling would be accepted by end consumers.”
Paper is the obvious SUPD-compliant option
Hence, a much less problematic solution to comply with increasingly stringent EVF and sustainability requirements is for cigarette manufacturers to shift to paper filters. And it’s a great solution, too. “By nature, paper has a higher filtering efficiency than cellulose acetate,” asserted Azinheira. And that still holds true despite the optical appearance of paper rods, which have a much larger mesh than cellulose acetate. “We use less paper and mold it into a looser mesh to match the pressure drop achieved with cellulose acetate,” explained Azinheira, “yet despite that larger mesh, there is no marked difference between [the filtering capabilities of] paper and cellulose acetate. It’s possible to obtain very similar smoke chemistry using crimped paper filters.” And from a design standpoint, paper rods can be just as easily infused with flavor additives or embedded with flavor capsules. In markets where flavored cigarettes are still legal, Filtrona does indeed offer these options.
A growing pool of users
In Europe, Filtrona currently has a pool of about a dozen customers that made the switch to paper. Dannemann, Europe’s biggest cigarillo manufacturer in Europe, transitioned about four years ago.
“They told us that their vision was to replace all their cellulose acetate with a paper substrate,” divulged Azinheira, but added he wanted to make it clear that Dannemann is not exclusively working with Filtrona but also a number of other filter suppliers. The firm is implementing its vision progressively in several markets. “Dannemann is an excellent example for an important company with an important role of leading the transition to a more sustainable product portfolio,” said Azinheira.
Luxembourg-based company Landewyck, one of Europe’s last remaining independent cigarette manufacturers and proprietor of brands such as Austin and Ducal, likewise picked up on the trend some time ago. One of the SKUs within its EliXyr line now deploys paper filters. And in Switzerland, a cigarette niche brand called Heimat has already been using paper-based filters for several years. In Heimat’s case, the substrate is “Genia,” a non-woven developed and patented by McAirlaids.
Not a matter of if, but of when
More companies are either already cuing up to implement the transition or have at least started to take a serious look at the possibility of transitioning. Azinheira related how he was fortunate enough to be invited as a keynote speaker to several tobacco industry exhibitions last year, including InterTabac in Germany. He is convinced that the paper filter trend will accelerate. He said that he pointed out to the audience in all his speeches that it is “no longer a matter of if but only a matter of when” the transition will happen on a much broader scale. “We do see very concrete movements towards [2025] being the year of plastic-free sustainable filters in the tobacco industry,” he said.