Over the years, single-use plastics have found themselves being used by packaging designers to perform many different functions. including the product collation function. Today, industries continue to employ single-use plastics as stretch wrap and shrink film to collate multiple units of product in their packaging lines.
In some cases, the collated “bundle” is separated into individual packs at the retail outlet. Here, the retail outlet disposes of the waste shrink film. In other cases, the plastic wrap is taken off by the end user, as in the case of beverage cans. Though convenient, this model is unsustainable. According to one report, India is the third largest producer of single use plastic and is responsible for generating around 56 thousand tonnes of single use plastic waste every year.
With global opinion and legislation turning up the heat against the usage of single-use plastics, Nordson India Pvt. Ltd. offers a patent pending solution enabling manufacturers to do away with single-use plastics in shrink wrapped collating applications. To implement this process, all that is required is a carrier made of paper board, textile, or a composite, along with a suitable pressure sensitive or fugitive adhesive. Part of the technology is in the selection of these materials since not all work to produce desirable results.
To begin with, adhesive beads are applied to both sides of the carrier, in an automatic machine. The product is then placed onto the adhesive and assembled into a collated bundle. The patent defines numerous shapes and size of the carrier, the kinds of products that could be collated and numerous arrangements within the bundle.
The benefits of this technology are:
- Elimination of single-use plastic in these collation applications.
- Compliance with government regulations.
- Cost reduction due to the elimination of expensive single use plastic.
- Significant reduction in energy consumption.
- Enhanced convenience.
- Flexibility in the design of the collated bundle.
- Flexibility in the product shapes that can be collated.
There are numerous promising applications, from the collation of books to the collation of personal care products.
A similar technology also finds use in pallet stabilization where pallets are currently stacked and wrapped with stretch film. Yet another application is in tray packing, where small packs of beverages are placed on a tray and then wrapped with shrink film.
A question that is often asked is why products cannot simply be stuck to each to form a bundle. Extensive trials of this concept have shown that sticking products to each other is not practical. If the products stuck to each other are made of paper board (for instance a carton of toothpaste), this process causes fibre tear in the carton when the products are separated from the bundle. If the products are made of metal (say cans of beverage) or plastic (say bottles of shampoo) residual adhesive on the product after its separation from the bundle, would make it unsaleable.
Nordson’s technology is being brought to the Indian industry through OEM machine manufacturers. It is a transformative technology, that will enable packaging designers make big strides in meeting their sustainability goals.
Headquartered in Bengaluru, Nordson India, a subsidiary of Nordson Corporation, is responsible for managing Nordson’s business interests in the Adhesive Dispensing Systems (ADS), Industrial Coating Systems (ICS), Engineered Fluid Dispensing (EFD) and Polymer Processing Systems (PPS) lines across the seven countries of South Asia – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives.
It carries out the engineering, marketing, manufacturing, and customer support activities required by Nordson’s customers across these countries in addition to providing all-round solutions on precision fluid dispensing.
Nordson India designs and develops (hardware and software) solutions for the global market, with the headquarters in Bengaluru possessing the technology to simulate production processes in a controlled environment.
Nordson India labs develop solutions addressing customer requirements, in addition to new products that are uniquely suited to the markets in India and other developing economies.
Company Press Release
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