Swedish flat-pack furniture giant Ikea will be phasing out the use of plastic on its gift cards, switching to Invercote paperboard instead.

The company says its decision to axe plastic in favour of board is driven by aesthetic and environmental imperatives.

 As part of a worldwide effort, Ikea Australia will contribute in the removal of the 12 to 15 million plastic cards that Ikea previously produced each year.

Per-Ola Nilsson, technical support for paper and print, Indirect Materials and Services, Ikea says, “Three of the gift card motifs are made of birch veneer but otherwise they are all Invercote.

“What we are after is the premium feeling. Invercote has good printability and stays flat when you place it on a flat surface, which is important so that people will experience the cards as being of the highest quality.

“We want to reduce the use of petroleum-based plastic in general and particularly where we do not have control over the product’s afterlife.

“We can’t know what the consumer will do with the gift card, so then an organic material like paperboard is better in this case because it damages nature less if it is not recycled properly.”

Invercote is produced by Iggesund Paperboard, which is part of forest industry group Holmen. The group owns more than 1.3 million hectares of forest in Sweden.

The company says as its paperboard is made of pure virgin fibre from managed forests, Invercote meets the world’s highest standards for sustainability.

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