Mono-materiality – yes! But how?
With Doypack D2100M machine
Eco-design, mono-materiality and recyclable packaging are relatively new terms, but they’ve already entered the vocabulary of all food and cosmetics manufacturers.
Just a few years ago, ecology was a trend that, because of the threats facing our planet, became a key factor taken into account during the packaging design process. Today, eco-design isn’t just a fashion, or testament to corporate responsibility, but also an answer to consumers’ expectations.
At the same time, in view of the ongoing work on the directive that will require the food, chemical and cosmetics, pet food as well as other industries to use uniform, fully recyclable materials, getting adapted to those changes is to be or not to be on the market.
Being a manufacturer of machines, we had to react very quickly and address those changes, adding a packaging machine adapted to the work with mono-film into our offer.
To some extent, our clients outpaced us and started using environmentally friendly films on earlier models of our machines, designed for the work with laminates. Unfortunately, such attempts failed, because mono-films melted, making the machine dirty, which led to downtime and the need to service the machine – to clean it and adapt it to the work on dedicated materials again.
The new material was a big challenge to us too.
Its physical and chemical properties differ from the laminates available on the market for several decades. Laminates are materials made of a few layers of various plastics. The market offers combinations of PET/PE, PA/PE, paper/PET/PE, as well as laminates with an additional aluminum layer, or covered with enriching substances or plastics which increase their barrier capacity. In principle, our machines for 30 years were dedicated to shaping e.g. sachets made out of them.
As soon as mono-films, that is, in fact, laminates consisting of layers of one plastic such as LDPE or HDPE, but also of two or three plastics which, according to the classification, can be recycled together, appeared on the market, we started to closely watch these materials.
We knew that soon the market would need machines, and that we had to be ready with an offer.
Mono-films did prove to be a big challenge. Either they would not seal at all, the seams didn’t look esthetic, or the ribbon of film passing through the machine got stretched and perforated at various stages.
After months of tests we succeeded!
The mono-film doypack packaging machine works, forms and operates on a variety of different types of available plastics.
Another step was to heat weld a stopper or a string into it. It also proved to be an interesting aspect.
We are able to heat weld both ribbed and smooth stoppers into mono-film packaging, and the decision is up to our clients
In total, we’ve changed as many as 16 elements in our DOYPACK D2100M!
The first machines already work at our clients.
As is the case with any machine, before innovative doypacks for mono-film are handed over to the client, we always test them in our factory on the materials and products to be finally packed.
Informed clients also conduct a number of tests on already packed products. Quality control in the food or cosmetics industry must be at the highest level and any compromises are out of the question. We know that products packed in mono-film on our new machines undergo a big number of quality tests. Our clients tell us, for example, that the seals are indestructible, packaging is wrinkle-free, smooth and esthetic, and the printing and finishing are not deformed in any way. Consequently, the efficiency of our machines remains very high!
What makes us – a packaging machine producer – happy is the growing environmental awareness of our clients. The fact that we start to take care of the planet together is encouraging. Creating the new Doypack helped us understand that green solutions are difficult to implement, as well as require time, investment and knowledge of plastics and packaging technologies. We are all the more pleased that our clients also have the courage and willingness to take on environmental challenges, introduce changes and incur investment costs.
We should point out that implementation of green packaging also builds the image of an informed and responsible brand. Consumers are more and more willing to take advantage of environmentally friendly solutions, use reliable sources of knowledge, and adopt a green lifestyle. Consequently, it’s worth targeting ones products at that group of clients, which accounts for a big percentage of all consumers.
As many as 44% of them are able to pay more for a product in sustainable packaging, with mono-film packaging being one of them.
If you think about introducing green solutions in your production, please get in touch with us. We’ll be happy to advise on the type of film, and if you’ve already chosen one, we’ll test which will be the best for your product.
We will do it in our machine!
We’ll treat it as a challenge, and willingly adapt it to new requirements!
