Sustainability meets functionality

IN THE past decade, packaging design received considerable attention. It became clear that one great design could  increase a company’s product sales and bottom line. Today’s packaging designers are responsible for creating products that have the right look, provide protection from damage during distribution and on the shelf, have long shelf-life, low production costs and, recently, are compliant with sustainability guidelines.

Making substantial changes to a package design requires getting approval from multiple stakeholders: the immediate package producer, the brand owner, and the retailer. Designers seeking to switch to more sustainable packaging face the challenge of educating themselves on both the sustainability of various options and the package performance possible from each.

Material selection is the most influential decision a designer makes in moving the sustainability needle, and many packaging companies have begun to focus on PET for a series of reasons:

1. It is suitable for nearly all consumer packaging applications. It possesses the enviable mechanical  characteristic of being easily formed into virtually any shape required by modern packaging for food, consumer products and cultured dairy products. Its formability has won it an already hefty market share in food packaging, and is the polymer of choice for toys and personal care products where the  switch from PVC is just getting underway on a large scale.

2.  It is the most well-established recycling stream of any packaging polymer. The PET bottle, now ubiquitously used for all sorts of beverages, has given rise to a global-scale  reclaim-and-recycle infrastructure. This infrastructure can only be made more efficient by increasing PET use through a more widespread application in non-beverage packaging.

Homogenising the waste stream by replacing polystyrene, polypropylene and PVC with PET only serves to increase an overall ability to reuse valuable resources. Eliminating the confusion of sorting different polymers at reclaim centres lowers cost and allows collection programs to become economical.

3. Food safety is at its best with PET. Since the material is an environment-friendly, easily-recyclable substance that does not emit toxins when incinerated, it has been for years internationally recognised by health authorities for its safety in food, beverage, and personal care products, as well as in pharmaceutical and medical applications. Indeed, food contact safety for all types of food, including a fairly wide range of pHs and oil content, is PET’s strong suit.

4. PET is an aesthetically pleasing material. The ability to view products inside their packaging is a critical concern for today’s modern consumer. Quality-manufactured PET packaging is known for its exceptional colour, clarity and high gloss finish. It is therefore considered one of the best materials for providing consumers with a clear view of product selections, and those aesthetic reasons are the main thrust behind why it is quickly becoming the packaging material of choice for designers seeking to switch to a more sustainable material for their clients’ packaging needs.

5. Not all PET sheets are created equal. One of the industry’s most recent entrants, OCTAL, demonstrated (via third-party testing) that PET sheet can be manufactured through a unique process that radically reduces the carbon footprint, and impacts the life cycle, of the end packaging. The process uses high quality virgin material and thus supplies a high quality feed stream needed to sustain a high level of recycling without  degrading  packaging  quality industry-wide.

Savvy designers should be aware that these variations in technology and processing methodology also produce variations in marketability and cTest running, chaussures, montres cardio gps et habits sports