A World’s Perspective of the Packaging Trend
Evolving Packaging Trends in a Sustainability-Driven World
Everyday consumer products utilize packaging in different forms. Depending on its application, it can be in various shapes and dimensions, and more importantly, the material used. As the world grows more environmentally conscious, people are starting to ask where the packaging goes after it is being disposed. Besides the consumer’s awareness, several other factors drive the trend of the types of packaging.
Understanding the type of disposable packaging materials
Basically, there are 3 main groups of materials:
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1. Plastic
Plastics are derived from fossil fuels or crude oil. As a cheap by-product, they are still the most popular material used for packaging. The process is simple with melting down pallets to molding them into shape. Due to the chemical properties, it is durable and clean without the need to apply barrier coating. -
2. Virgin Pulp
Virgin Pulp are formed from trees and its shredded pieces are pulped into jumbo rolls or sheets. The process is simple as well as these jumbo rolls are fed into machines for lamination, cutting and folded into shape. -
3. Molded Fiber
Molded fiber, on the other hand is formed using recycled material like paper, bagasse and other natural waste fibers. They are mixed with water to create a slurry pulp which are then transferred to thermoforming machines for molding into desired shape. For food packaging, they are required to undergo a coating process for hygiene and durability purposes.
Trend Drivers
Plastic is still the most popular form of packaging today due to its low cost and durability. However, consumers are now very much aware of the harmful effect of disposing them. Although industry has been adopting the latest environment friendly plastic materials, the biodegradability is still very much in question. It would take years or even lifetimes for plastic to be completely broken down. Encouragements from governmental bodies to recycle plastic containers, but in actual fact, only a very small percentage of consumers adopt this practice.
With many countries beginning to ban single use plastic, packaging derived from virgin pulp appears to be the best alternative to plastic. They are easily broken down and its waste can be recycled for other purpose. But there is the argument of deforestation. It would take days to cut down trees but decades to grow them back. Some countries have strict regulation about cutting down trees. Packaging companies have started regrowing process. They commit that for each tree they cut, they would plant two. However, this would take years for the realization of this process. Also, the pulp formed needs to be laminated before forming and this material contain plastic as well
Molded Fiber is the next solution but the cost of implementing this is high. Although the material cost is next to none, the collection of recyclable waste, sorting, cleaning, sanitizing and pulping are very tedious and time consuming which are contributing to the bottom-line. To add to that, the formed products need to be applied with barrier coating (usually water-based) for hygiene and durability purpose. As such, companies are very reluctant to adopt this material as the product would eventually end up expensive.
How can HYC help?
We design, build and implement innovative solutions and compliment the downstream process of the molded pulp production lines. Our high-speed Denester dispenses stacked products onto the conveyor which feeds the products into our costing spray machines. This highly adjustable spray booth ensures evenly coated products and is then transferred to our state-of-the-art Spiral curing oven. At a small floor space, our oven will produce a much higher output at a shorter time. It also comes equipped with Infrared heaters which are more energy efficient than any other ovens in the market with convectional electric heaters.
Overall, our complete system will help drive the cost down with increased yield over a short period and lesser energy consumption.
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