Impact of Sustainable Materials on Packaging Equipment

Presented by Daniel Cluskey, Printpack

2025 is fast approaching, bringing with it commitments from consumer packaged goods companies to have all their packaging be recyclable, compostable, or reusable.  For many flexible packages this means a complete redesign of the base material focused on end of life.  With any material change, a top concern of customers is “how will this new material run on my packaging equipment?”  Although it seems like a simple question there are dozens of variables that impact the answer, and not all of them can be quantified with data from a lab.

This presentation will focus on an extensive study of how store drop off polyethylene, recyclable paper, and compostable substrates compare to incumbent packaging on a horizontal form fill seal flow wrap machine.  Our hope is to better understand the changes that need to be made to packaging equipment to run these new substrates, and also how they will impact efficiencies on existing machines.

The switch to sustainable packaging is happening and it is critical that consumer packaged goods companies understand the impact it will have on their business.