The Future Of Green Packaging And What It Means For Converters

Why Plastic Restriction Keeps Tightening

Because of the irreversible environmental pollution caused by the use of plastics, more and more countries have joined plastic restriction programmes. In China a plastic restriction order was implemented in 2008, and with the rise of the internet economy the old version kept meeting new problems and its effect was greatly reduced. A newer version has been introduced with wider expectations attached to it.

Reuse, Recycling And Where Paper Sits

Green packaging covers reusable packaging, such as glass bottles used repeatedly for beer, beverages, soy sauce and vinegar, and recycled packaging. Recycling can be physical, meaning direct purification and crushing without residual pollutants, or chemical, where recycled PET is pulverised and washed, depolymerised into monomers under a catalyst and repolymerised into recycled packaging material. Paper cushioning avoids that chain entirely by staying in one material stream.

Design Interest Beyond Packaging

Paper honeycomb combines superior strength and rigidity from its hexagonal cells with extremely low weight per cubic metre. Those functional elements make it attractive to designers of protective packaging and as a base material for doors, acoustic walls, exhibition panels and furniture.

Kraft Honeycomb Paper Forming Machine

What This Means If You Convert Packaging

The demand shift is not a preference change that can be waited out, because it is written into retail specifications and into regulation. For a converter the practical question is which paper format to produce first, and that is usually the highest volume item on the customer's packing bench.