Discover your next big idea at PACK EXPO Las Vegas this September
Experience a breakthrough in packaging & processing and transform your business with solutions from 2,300 suppliers spanning all industries.
REGISTER NOW & SAVE

Kimberly-Clark uses packaging to reduce product waste

As part of its parent company’s sustainability efforts, Kimberly-Clark Health Care and Kimberly-Clark Professional develop a dual-opening device that prevents medical exam glove waste.

SmartPULL packaging technology on glove boxes helps reduce product waste by preventing extra gloves from falling out while pulling out a glove.
SmartPULL packaging technology on glove boxes helps reduce product waste by preventing extra gloves from falling out while pulling out a glove.

Kimberly-Clark is known for popular consumer brands such as Kleenex, Scott, Huggies, Pull-Ups, Kotex, and Depend. Yet through its four business segments, the company also makes products for industrial and medical-related segments. In all, Kimberly-Clark markets its brands in more than 175 countries.


This summer, Kimberly-Clark Health Care and Kimberly-Clark Professional, two of those four segments, are launching “SmartPULL*” packaging technology for its STERLING* and LAVENDER* Medical Exam gloves that greatly reduce glove waste from previous packaging and fit into the company’s wide-ranging sustainability efforts.


Developed internally, SmartPULL packaging technology incorporates a dual glove opening tab for paperboard cartons used in medical, dental, laboratory, and university research environments.


Until now, glove waste occurred among customers. Carolina Krevolin, senior category manager, Scientific Gloves at Kimberly-Clark Professional, explains: “Some customers in medical environments put the glove boxes in a dispenser that is hung up vertically or horizontally on a wall. At times, when they opened that box and pulled out a glove, several other gloves would fall out. Those gloves could not be used, which caused unnecessary waste. With our SmartPULL technology, we reduced waste by up to 30 percent.”


Packaging engineers “designed an opening so that you would have two tabs for opening,” she notes. “The first tab creates an opening that’s smaller than usually found on a typical box of gloves, so that as you pull a glove out of the carton you pull out only one glove, not two or three gloves behind it. The second tab creates a wider opening. By the time you have used about half the gloves, you completely pull off the carton opening to gain better access to the remaining gloves in the box.”


Offshore manufacturing and packaging
The medical exam gloves employing the SmartPULL technology are manufactured, then manually packaged, in Malaysia and Thailand. Paperboard cartons, which use up to 45% recycled content, are sourced outside the U.S., using packaging specifications provided by Kimberly-Clark.


Meanwhile, the manufacturing process for the Kimberly-Clark Professional cleanroom gloves (which do not employ the SmartPULL technology) is much more labor-intensive, with workers needed for washing the inside and outside of the gloves in large tumbling machines. Some gloves go through up to eight individual washes to meet regulations. Krevolin says, “In the cleanroom environment, we are protecting the product and process from the person, whereas in the medical exam environment, we are protecting the user from bacteria, blood, and body fluids.”


Recently the company automated its upstream manufacturing line operations, which have reduced cleanroom glove-manufacturing time by more than 60%. Following washing and drying, gloves within individual formers are retrieved by workers who put them into polyethylene (PE) bags.

Break out of the ordinary: see what’s new in packaging & processing!
At PACK EXPO Las Vegas, you’ll see machinery in action and new tech from 2,300 suppliers, collaborate with experts and explore transformative solutions. Join us this September to experience a breakthrough in packaging and processing.
REGISTER NOW AND SAVE
Break out of the ordinary: see what’s new in packaging & processing!
Researched List: Engineering Services Firms
Looking for engineering services? Our curated list features 100+ companies specializing in civil, process, structural, and electrical engineering. Many also offer construction, design, and architecture services. Download to access company names, markets served, key services, contact information, and more!
Download Now
Researched List: Engineering Services Firms