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Xbox plays to the environment at Sam's Club

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 game system sold exclusively at Sam’s Club appears in a new kind of environmentally friendly packaging.

Pw 10195 Xbox Front

A special bundled version of the Microsoft Xbox 360 entertainment system introduced in Sam’s Club stores in November 2005 has “game,” environmentally speaking. It represents the first introduction of EnviroShell® environmentally friendly packaging from Winterborne, a partner company of Smurfit-Stone.

EnviroShell is a hybrid blister/corrugated package made from 65% recycled materials, including 50% post-consumer content. The packaging uses a combination of corrugated to carry graphics and clear RPET (recycled polyester) to display the product. EnviroShell has also been used for media storage devices from Toshiba (see Toshiba debuts environmental hybrid pack for Sam’s Club).

The packaging is part of an environmental strategy of Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA, that included deleting polyvinyl chloride from its packaging by 2006. The Xbox 360 helps the company put a new spin on environmentally friendly packaging through a reworked version of its retail package.

“We saw this packaging as a better packaging solution than PVC,” says Scott Ballantine, packaging project manager.

The solution is as notable for its materials as for its size. The product components of the game console, cable, literature, and two controllers are packed inside a 3’x2’x1’ blister pack made of RPET. The front and back blisters are thermoformed from 24-mil RPET with feet that permit it to stand upright on display.

Graphics are carried on a sturdy insert sheet of 275# B-flute corrugated that’s folded, with four-color lithography on the outer liner. After the product components are packed inside, the RPET thermoforms are sandwiched between the corrugated, which is folded over around it. The two corrugated layers are hot melt glued together using an eco-friendly, water-based adhesive. Soon, the corrugated’s edges will be crushed and heat sealed using a special process custom-designed for EnviroShell by Winterborne. The concept is to substitute corrugated for SBS paperboard, yet mimic the clean look and graphics quality of paperboard.

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