How Cardboard Can Carriers Are Ending the Plastic Six-Pack Ring Era

For over half a century, the plastic six-pack ring was the default way to bundle canned beverages. It was cheap, fast to apply, and instantly recognizable — but it also became one of the most notorious symbols of plastic pollution, infamous for entangling seabirds, turtles, and fish long after it left the store shelf. Today, that era is winding down. A wave of paperboard-based can carriers is replacing the plastic ring across breweries, soda makers, and beverage brands worldwide, and the shift is happening faster than most people realize.

A Design That Outlived Its Welcome

The six-pack ring was invented in the 1960s and, within about a decade, had almost completely displaced the paper and metal holders that came before it. It won on cost and speed of manufacturing — but its Achilles' heel was always end-of-life. Loose plastic rings don't biodegrade, they're rarely recycled in practice, and they have a well-documented history of trapping wildlife. That reputation eventually caught up with the format, especially as plastic-reduction laws and consumer sentiment shifted hard against single-use plastic over the last decade.

Enter the Paperboard Carrier

The most visible replacement is a category of paperboard, or cardboard, can carriers — flat-packed fiber-based holders that snap or wrap around cans instead of piercing through them. A few designs illustrate how varied this category has become:

• KeelClip, developed by Graphic Packaging International, uses a paperboard lid across the top of the cans with a hidden "keel" flap that keeps them stable, replacing rings, tops, and shrink wrap in one format. Coca-Cola HBC and AB InBev were among the first major companies to commit to rolling it out across European markets, with AB InBev bringing it to UK brands including Bud Light.
• Fishbone-style clips, made by companies like Atlantic Packaging, use a fiber structure with a moisture-resistant, recyclable coating so the carrier holds up in a cooler full of ice without falling apart — addressing one of the early criticisms of cardboard carriers.
• Adhesive-based carriers, such as Carlsberg's glue-dot design, skip a physical carrier altogether and instead bond cans directly together with small dots of adhesive, cutting out packaging material entirely.
• Tray, sleeve, and box-style carriers from custom packaging manufacturers offer fully enclosed or open-top formats that double as printable branding real estate on the retail shelf.

Why Brands Are Actually Making the Switch

Environmental concern alone rarely moves an entire industry — but a few practical advantages have made paperboard carriers a business decision, not just a sustainability gesture:

Regulation is catching up. Plastic ring bans and restrictions have been introduced across multiple markets in recent years, including moves in the EU and Canada to phase out single-use plastic packaging, pushing brands toward compliant alternatives ahead of deadlines rather than after the fact.

It fits existing production lines. One reason KeelClip in particular gained traction is that it was engineered to run on the same high-speed filling lines beverage companies already use — a make-or-break requirement for companies packaging thousands of cans per minute.

It's genuinely recyclable. Paperboard carriers can typically go straight into curbside recycling, unlike plastic rings, which usually require special drop-off programs that most consumers never use.

It's free advertising. A flat plastic ring offers no real surface for branding. A paperboard carrier, by contrast, gives companies a printable panel across the top or side of the pack — extra shelf presence at no additional production step.

It removes the entanglement risk entirely. Even biodegradable plastic rings still pose a temporary hazard to wildlife before they break down. A carrier made of fiber simply doesn't carry that same risk.

The Trade-offs

Cardboard carriers aren't a perfect swap. Early paperboard designs had a reputation for softening or losing structural integrity in wet or icy conditions — a real problem for a product that spends a lot of its life in a cooler. Later generations addressed this with water-resistant, recyclable barrier coatings and reinforced fiber layers, but it's a reminder that the format is still evolving rather than fully solved. Cost per unit and application speed can also vary by design, which is part of why the market hasn't converged on a single winner — KeelClip, fishbone clips, glue-dot bonding, and tray-style boxes are all competing approaches rather than one standardized replacement.

What This Means Going Forward

The plastic six-pack ring isn't gone yet, but its dominant position is clearly over. Major bottlers and brewers have already committed to phasing it out across key markets, regulation is accelerating that timeline in many regions, and smaller beverage brands are increasingly choosing paperboard carriers from the start rather than switching later. What began as a niche sustainability pitch a decade ago has become a mainstream packaging standard — proof that sometimes the most effective way to solve a plastic pollution problem is simply to design a better piece of cardboard.