PCMC, Essity create coreless toilet paper product

Just about everyone has been there: You sit down in the bathroom and look at the toilet paper roll, annoyed to find only a bare cardboard tube.

But it doesn't have to be that way, according to two paper industry companies with locations in northeast Wisconsin.

A handful of years ago, Paper Converting Machine Company and Essity introduced a toilet paper roll that does not have a cardboard core at its center. When the sheets run out, there is nothing left on the spindle.

While it won't magically make your family replace a finished roll, the coreless product has gained popularity in Europe in recent years, and people could start seeing it on store shelves in the U.S. in the near future, according to Stefano Spinelli, director of product lifecycle management at PCMC, a BW Converting business that's headquartered in Green Bay.

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin spoke with Spinelli late last year about the benefits of a coreless product, what makes it possible and how it's an evolution of previous products.

PCMC has worked on its no-core Korleus technology since the '90s, and the company began developing its INVISIBLE-O technology, for consumer rolls, in 2014.

PCMC then teamed up with Essity — a Swedish company that operates a Menasha paper mill and other Fox Cities locations — to launch a coreless toilet paper on the retail market in Germany and France in 2018, according to Raquel M. Carbonari, brand activation director for Essity Professional Hygiene, North America.

There's been "a lot of interest" in Europe, according to Spinelli. More recently, PCMC has done trials with customers in Latin America and North America, he said.

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One key part of PCMC's INVISIBLE-O technology, Spinelli said, is that it can be used with existing PCMC converting lines. That's helpful, he said, because companies invest a significant amount of money in this kind of equipment.

The module uses a special polymer mandrel that behaves like a cardboard core, but it doesn't go to the customer. Instead, the polymer is inserted and the paper winds around it. To remove it, the mandrel rotates, leaving a circular hole behind. PCMC also developed a "special liquid," Spinelli said, which can be sprayed on the inner paper, to help the hole keep its structure.

The mandrels are used over and over, according to Spinelli. Producers can still use the same type of paper and fiber with this technology, he said, as they did with rolls that use cardboard cores.

The technology also works for nonwovens, like tubes of disinfectant wipes, and paper towels, according to Spinelli.

Coreless products are "useable from the beginning to the end," Spinelli said, leaving nothing behind after the last sheet is used.

While cardboard cores can be recycled, they oftentimes end up in trash cans, Spinelli said. Aside from elementary school craft projects, generally, "nobody cares about" those brown tubes, really, he said.

"I'm buying toilet paper, not cardboard cores," Spinelli said.

But companies spend lots of time and money making and shipping these tubes, he said. Meanwhile, coreless products are more sustainable, Spinelli said, and help companies save money.

Coreless toilet paper can also fit more paper than a standard roll, uses less packaging, and requires less storage space, according to Grant Rowe, senior product manager for toilet paper and facial tissue at Essity Professional Hygiene, North America.

Essity's seen "a growing demand" from customers, overall, "for more sustainable products that use less packaging materials," Carbonari said. "We expect this demand to further increase in future years."

In the tissue industry, there are products for the at-home market, like the toilet paper you buy at a grocery store, and the away-from-home market, which you find at restaurants, hotels and other similar places.

Multiple companies already make coreless tissue products for the away-from-home market, including in the U.S. For instance, Georgia-Pacific makes a coreless toilet paper roll and an award-winning coreless dispenser. Essity has its Tork professional hygiene brand, which offers coreless toilet paper in Europe and North America, according to Carbonari. Tork also provides coreless dispensers and spindles, Rowe said. (Essity does not offer retail/at-home hygiene solutions in the North America market.)

What's unique about the coreless product that PCMC created, Spinelli said, is that it's for at-home use.

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There's a hurdle that coreless toilet paper will have to face, Spinelli said, before it can become widespread in the U.S.

In the 2010s, a major global company introduced — and later discontinued — a tube-free toilet paper in the U.S. The center had a "fluted" appearance, and the hole wasn't perfectly cylindrical, so it didn't rotate well on the spindle, according to Spinelli.

This could make customers wary of a new coreless product, Spinelli said. But once PCMC shows people "this is different," he said, and the technology is an evolution from previous versions, people generally get on board, he said.

Spinelli said he thinks there will likely be coreless products on store shelves in the U.S. by 2025.

Reach Becky Jacobs at [email protected] or 920-993-7117. Follow her on Twitter at @ruthyjacobs.