Process optimisation is often an important part of an organisation’s business operations. It ensures that processes are made more efficient, which must ultimately result in fewer lost materials, less waste, and reduced energy consumption. With regard to packaging development and the reduction of the packaging’s environmental impact, you can explore the following measures:
- Reduced material use
- Waste prevention
- Standardisation in packaging and packaging materials
- Recycle internal packaging waste
Reduced material use with better processes
Modern machinery and processes use sensors that can track important process parameters during production. The computer that runs the process can monitor settings in real time and make adjustments if necessary. This ensures that processes are smoother, which reduces the mechanical strain on packaging materials. The process can also immediately react to small variations in the properties of the packaging material. This presents opportunities for reduced material use and the use of renewable materials, monomaterials, or materials made from recyclate, since these materials are sometimes more vulnerable than virgin materials.
Waste prevention
Waste prevention concerns the effective management of waste materials and the efficient use of raw materials. This can be achieved by preventing or limiting the production of waste materials (including waste water) and reducing the negative environmental impact of waste materials. Internal reuse falls under prevention; external reuse does not. Preventing waste leads to significant savings because fewer raw materials have to be purchased and fewer waste streams have to be disposed of.
Standardisation in packaging and packaging materials
Standardisation often leads to improved efficiency, because process settings do not have to be modified as often. As a result, the process is less prone to errors. Standardisation usually also leads to a reduction of the amount of material kept in stock. This, in turn, can reduce the amount of waste that is produced. After all, less old stock has to be destroyed when an organisation for example switches to new artworks or when adjustments in the material have to be made.
Inline printing techniques can facilitate the road to standardisation. As a result of the increasing quality and speed of these printing techniques, it is becoming easier to print country-specific or product-specific information on a standardised basic packaging during the filling process in the production line.
Recycle internal packaging waste (as part of the process)
When producing packaging materials and semi-finished products, waste (for example cutting waste from punching out trays) is sometimes generated. If monomaterials are used in the process, it is often possible to reuse this waste as new material. This eliminates the residual waste stream from the process and ensures that all raw material is used for the production of the packaging. This procedure is usually not feasible for multi-layer materials.
Every process experiences losses as a result of production errors or malfunctions. It is important to determine how packaging materials and product can be separated immediately, so the product can be returned to the start of the process and be repackaged.
In logistical processes, it is often easy to process and dispose of streams of monomaterials separately, such as pallet films and corrugated cardboard boxes that were used for incoming materials. Using reusable packaging materials such as crates, pallets, etcetera presents opportunities for waste prevention.
Packaging materials and process
When developing sustainable packaging materials, choosing the right material and packaging process is an important step. When choosing a material, you are basically also choosing a packaging process. This combination determines which packaging types you can produce.
Here is an example: suppose you want to package soup. You not only have to choose a material, for example glass, plastic or metal, but also a packaging type, for example a glass bottle, a glass jar, a plastic bag, or a metal can. Each of these options calls for a specific processing process, since filling a glass jar requires entirely different production lines than filling a flexible bag.
The choice for a sustainable packaging solution is therefore not only limited to the sustainability of packaging materials. In addition to the material itself, the packaging process and the logistical process also affect the sustainability. This section therefore contains both information about material selection and raw materials as well as points of attention for the packaging process, packaging systems, and logistics.