Recycling: Page 395

Conveying & accumulation

Air cushions salve Omron's shipping wounds

Medical supply distributor switches from loose-fill “peanuts” to an air-cushioned void fill to satisfy customers and cut space requirements.

March 31, 2001

Flexibles

Sporty pouch a U.S. first

Wanting to make a splash in the sports drink category, Hydrade Beverage is introducing a 500-mL stand-up pouch with a PET/foil/PET/PE structure.

March 31, 2001

Flexible packaging

Non-food flexible packs devour awards

FPA recognizes a multilayer p-s ‘book’ label for cleaners, a plastic header bag, a resealable stand-up pouch, a high-barrier industrial wrap, formable and peelable webs for a medical package, and a CR reclosable bag for pharmaceuticals.

March 31, 2001

Conveying & accumulation

Rayovac charges up battery lines

Two new production lines package AA and AAA batteries, respectively, into peggable, reclosable RPET clamshells. Integrated setups include self-designed battery handling systems.

March 31, 2001

Sustainable Packaging

Corrugated pallets

National Packaging Companies’ (Newark, NJ) Enviro-Pallets are comprised of recycled corrugated board and natural paper fiber. They cost less than wodden pallets while providing an environmentally friendly solution to the problems of handling and disposing of wooden pallets.

February 28, 2001

Flexible packaging

No-strings-attached tea bag

Honest Tea, Bethesda, MD, launched a whole-leaf, natural tea line in fall 2000, sealed in what it calls a first-of-its-kind integral "Tag-and-Bag" supplied by Copack Intl. (Carlstadt, NJ). This nonwoven, filter tea bag and tag replaces the standard string, staple and printed tag. A four-side, sealed kraft overwrap pouch locks in the freshness.

January 31, 2001

Secondary Packaging

Club stores applaud multipack

When club store managers told Del Monte Foods that they wanted canned fruits and vegetables in multipacks more elegant than the ring carrier arrangement they’d been receiving, Del Monte responded.

January 31, 2001

Flexible packaging

Pack gains Annie's approval

Annie’s® Homegrown Inc. in September introduced Microwavable Single Servings Mac & Cheese Meals in a “dual pouch” that holds organically grown macaroni in one pouch and powdered cheese sauce in a second, smaller pouch.

January 31, 2001

Blisters/clamshells/skin packaging

Light shines on carded blister

Netherlands-based Philips Lighting Co. packages its Marathon brand of nonincandescent household bulbs to the American market in a carded pack that contains a recycled, amorphous polyethylene terephthalate (APET) blister set in an outer card. Changing from solid unbleached sulfate board to recycled board helped make an ecologically friendly, cost-saving package.

January 31, 2001

Coding, Printing & Labeling

Organic labeling finalized

It took 10 years, but in December 2000 the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture published its official definition of “organic” and established rules for both raw and processed foods that bear the USDA Organic seal.

January 31, 2001

Consumer packaged goods

Where packaging meets logistics, Nordic style

Edited copies of presentations at a Danish symposium are bound into a 106-page volume that largely examines transit packaging and how it fits into a company’s logistics plan.

January 31, 2001

Protective/transport packaging

SeaShell drives away damage

Disk drive manufacturer Seagate reduces damage by 60% and saves more than $4 million per year in freight and materials costs by switching to a thermoformed ‘SeaShell’ clamshell.

January 31, 2001