Sustainability in Packaging – WEIMA at WestPack 2022
WEIMA is excited to return to the tradeshow floor, educating show-goers on size reduction machinery for a variety of industries. WestPack 2022 in Anaheim, California will be an incredible opportunity to educate attendees about the efficient recycling of packaging through shredding and compressing technology.
California, here we come!
The WEIMA sales team will be on the show floor in Anaheim, CA in early April! WestPack 2022 is co-located with a few other shows, including ATX West, Design & Manufacturing West, MD&M West, and Plastec. The proximity of these shows adds value to attendees who may be interested in products and machinery from more than one sector. WEIMA’s booth at WestPack will focus on sustainability in packaging through shredding and compressing.
WEIMA at WestPack
Sustainability in film packaging applications
Packaging comes in a variety of materials, and the manufacturers of these materials often create scrap in the production process. Shredding is often the first step in any recycling process, and it is necessary to have a shredder that is robust enough to handle these tough applications.
For example, producers of plastic film can shred excess film scrap and re-pelletize it for easy reintegration. This can supplement the need to purchase virgin materials required in film production. Manufacturers of bubble wrap and shrink wrap specifically can benefit from efficient shredding, which offers economic and environmental benefits.
Rethinking corrugated cardboard packaging
Paper and cardboard manufacturers can maximize production scrap by shredding it as well. If reintegration is not an option, reinvention may be possible!
Easy2Cool is a company that developed a creative way to transform material that would otherwise go to a landfill. This Bavarian company shreds corrugated cardboard for use as insulation material in festival beverage coolers. Reimagining this scrap material decreases waste and adds value to the world by creating a secondary useful product from something that would otherwise be discarded.
Drainage presses for canning lines
WEIMA recently introduced a new line of machinery for the drainage and compression of filled aluminum cans. Canning lines specifically can benefit from the PUEHLER machinery from WEIMA, which drain and compress underfilled or out-of-spec product in a single step. This machinery is easily integrated into existing canning lines and can be hand-fed and/or batch-fed, depending on the needs of the company.
Fiddlehead Brewing Co. in Shelburne, Vermont, uses a drainage press to ensure quality control standards are met while decreasing unnecessary waste. The brewery had been disposing of out-of-spec products manually, meaning an employee opened each underfilled can and poured it down a drain. A drainage press punctures the aluminum cans and simultaneously compresses them into discs, simplifying the recycling of aluminum and decreasing the need for excess storage space.
Quality control is key
The PUEHLER machinery from WEIMA is a great fit for canning lines, but it also allows manufacturers of other types of fluid-filled packaging to maintain control of the quality of their product. One-step product destruction ensures that only the highest-quality merchandise makes it to market and that the out-of-spec product is diverted from a landfill.
Other applications that may benefit from a drainage press range from plastic condiment jars, cooking oil bottles, cosmetic containers, milk jugs, yogurt cartons, drink pouches, filled Tetra-paks, and more.
Rework configurations are also available for operations that aim to reuse the drained material.
The size reduction of packaging materials is of the utmost importance following the pandemic. The increase of online shopping resulted of the increase of cardboard and bubble wrap in waste streams worldwide. Individually-wrapped food products and single-serve beverages became more necessary in preventing the spread of the virus, resulting in increased waste. Recycling these materials is paramount to relieving the strain placed on MRFs and the overflow of landfills.
WEIMA is excited to show attendees the benefits of packaging recycling. See you in Anaheim!
