Reducing the carbon footprint in plastic tubs, cups and containers

Consumers are demanding convenience packaging with low environmental impact. This was the message at the latest AMI conference on Thin Wall Packaging, held in Cologne, Germany in October. Jon Nash, the Strategic Research Director at Applied Market Information, has surveyed the plastics tubs and container market: the highest annual growth was seen in delicatessen products followed by dairy and meat, fish and poultry. Campina has a global presence in the dairy products industry - its retail packaging needs include product visibility, protection and consumer attraction. European countries have different requirements, for example, in the Netherlands there is no transport packaging on the shelf. Light weight and compact packaging are key aims, to reduce the environmental impact of transporting products. Decorative effects are provided by companies such as the Printing Company Verstraete, which produces 23 million in-mould labels every day. The IML process saves time and means that products can be of one material, i.e. polypropylene, which aids recycling. IML also permit more complex designs and a faster turn around time. New products include microwave safe IML decorated EPS cups. Treofan produces BOPP film for IML labels. There are developments in thin wall container manufacturing technology. Netstal is working on weight reduction in moulding thin wall containers. Husky has 32 cavity container moulds, 64 cavity lid moulds and an overall cycle time of 6 seconds. Kiefel has speeded up thermoforming with new machinery. Illig has developed bottle production using thermoforming. Hekuma has equipment for IML. Cypet has developed a single-stage PET container production process. The UK food tray market grew to 18000 m units in 2007. Sharp Interpack is working to raise its environmental credentials by reviewing in house practices, increasing packing density and considering recycling in the design process. RPC has produced new baked bean multi-pot packaging and soup containers for Heinz. Microwave cooking has generated a rise in ready meal consumption. Microwaveable barrier packaging is a speciality of Rexam. The company uses a unique rotary thermoforming process and generates a 7-layer coextruded structure with PP as the outer layer and EVOH as the inner barrier. MX-polyamide from Mitsubishi Gas Chemical is a thermoformable material. It shows high barrier performance compared to EVOH in multilayer container packaging and has been used in a variety of applications in Japan, such as soup, cat food, and chocolate drinks. SABIC has high flow PP grades to speed up container production. LyondellBasell has a new high impact, high gloss, and high flow grade. A new nonitol-based clarifier from Milliken enables PP to approach the high transparency of polystyrene (PS) containers. Adeka also has a range of clarifiers with excellent transparency and impact at low loading. Polystyrene accounts for around 900 kt of packaging in Europe as cups, form-fill-seal, foamed trays and thermoformed containers. The material is supplied by companies such as Ineos Nova. FKuR Kunststoff has been compounding bioplastics so that they can be processed on conventional injection moulding machines. The German packaging institute (IK) has reviewed bioplastics: the issues include availability, high cost, performance in life cycle analysis, recycling and properties compared to PP, PS and PET. The market for thin wall packaging is predicted to grow, and the pressure on manufacturers is to reduce the carbon footprint of the industry. There is an annual forum for producers and purchasers held in Cologne in October by Applied Market Information.