The aluminium tube: brilliant save!

The pharmaceutical industry is the largest customer of aluminium tube manufacturers worldwide. It is obvious that no other branch depends more on the quality and hygiene of packaging. The job of ointments and other paste-type or semi-liquid compounds is far more than just to look good. It is to help! So packaging is not only a matter of giving products an outward aspect. It has to protect the content perfectly.

Just imagine a new ointment that cures skin diseases but is potentially allergenic because of added preservatives. The aluminium tube shields the content and isolates it from all conceivable environmental influences. Neither air nor light can penetrate the tube. Therefore the use of preservatives is obsolete. In the other direction, the barrier function of aluminium makes sure that valuable volatile ingredients of the product cannot escape from the tube and shields aggressive ingredients and avoids unwished chemical reactions attacking the packaging. Other details are also of great importance in the pharmaceutical sector: exact dispensing and sterility must be guaranteed. The aluminium tube is convenient to handle because the tube body is flexible without any “air suck-back” effect. The aluminium tube is the undisputed number one packaging for ointment products in the pharmaceutical sector. Besides the outstanding technical features producers of pharmaceutical products appreciate aluminium as a valuable and ecologically sustainable packaging material. Responsibility for future generations and the ecological aspects of products and packaging are on the agenda of social and political discussion, making them a significant marketing issue. Aluminium tubes have high recycling rates in Europe and bauxite, the raw material for the production of primary aluminium, is an almost endlessly available resource.