Whether it's coming by innovating with production styles or by completely reusing commodity packaging, industries continue to uncover new way to increase its versatility.
Whether it's coming by innovating with production styles or by completely reusing a normal product, the packing products industry continues to find new ways to change its practices.Commodity packaging capitalizes on versatility
According to European Plastics News, one such shift in operation strategy will likely benefit companies that create bubble wrap packaging..”Medical and environmental samples at a high-profile biological engineering location are now not only being shipped using the product but now the samples are being tested in the bubble wrap packaging as well." One such lab that is currently doing this is the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.
"Scientists often have bubble wrap around the lab because other equipment is shipped in it," said Dionysios Christodouleas, part of the team at the Wyss Institute, to the news source. "Bubble wrap has several characteristics that make it attractive as a candidate for adaptive use as a container for liquid samples: it is available in a wide range of sizes and it is compartmentalized in a regular pattern, which is useful for parallel multi-bubble assays. It is also a transparent and sealed container."
Sample testing may seem like a very unlikely use for such a tenured commodity packaging product. The Wyss Instiutue for Biologically Inspired Engineering reviews some of the core reasons why bubble packaging is being championed for this process:
- Sterile interior
- Cost reduction of the normal go-to storage containers
- Decreased cost of analysis
- Important strides toward making important health test procedures available to local communities
While there are limits to developing these samples using bubble wrap, such as the type of tooling required to use the bubble for this process, there are high hopes for its increased versatility and capability in the future.
Recycling introduces packaging alternatives
Recycling Today added that a second use of packaging materials that is increasingly going to change the industry comes from added recycling. Cascades, which recently introduced a new product, Respak, is just one company making strides in this area. Respak is a substitute for polycoated packaging products, designed for primary use in the food and food services industries.
The material is recyclable and compostable without sacrificing any of the performance and durability characteristics of normal polycoated packaging. Normal polycoated material is not recyclable, giving Respak a significant advantage. Respak has as much as a 50 percent potential improvement on environmental impact compared to other types of polycoated production products on the market.
Marc Andre-Depin, President and CEO of Norampac, noted many of the product’s desirable characteristics including:
- A green alternative to polycoated products
- Reduction of the impact of food consumption on waste
- Compliance with food safety standards, including FDA regulations
Sustainable packaging conversions applauded
Plastics News reported that companies are also being lauded for their use of environmentally-friendly materials. The Reusable Packaging Association recently awarded two companies for their "measurable and significant cost and environmental savings," according to the news source.
Fully Bell Farm in Guinda, California, is an organic farm that won an award for businesses with less than $25 million in annual sales. The company replaced 8,330 waxed cardboard boxes with a ton of reusable plastic totes with attached lids. The totes are used for product delivery, then returned, thus making it a sizable sustainable packaging option.
Svenska Retursystem of Stockholm, Sweden, earned a second award for businesses that sell more than $25 million in the market at any one time. It led a program that established a common pooling system for more than 200 food producers in Sweden and throughout Europe.
