Sustainability in wrapping has two important definitions. The first is sustaining your own business by making smart, well-executed business decisions. The second one refers to the impact your packaging process has on the environment. It involves thinking about your products and processes with a consideration for the environmental impacts those products and processes have on our planet and its inhabitants.Overwrapping is a more sustainable process and here is why.
To calculate the impact of your packaging process on sustainability, you should look at three process measures:
• Life Cycle Analysis
• Total Cost Assessment
• Total Cost of Ownership
When it comes to sustainability in wrapping, there are two environmental impacts to consider in addition to the total cost of ownership.
• energy consumption and efficiency of your process
• the material you use in your process
Energy consumption and efficiency of your process
Overwrapping is a very efficient energy user. Unlike shrink wrapping which requires a heat tunnel to shrink the loose film to the product, overwrapping uses heat only to weld seams. This means that the heat created and used is minimal.
The material you use in your process
Material used is a little tricky to think about.
Factors to weigh
• product protection and enhancement
• environmental impact of creating the wrapping material
• amount of material used in the process
• environmental impact of disposal of the material post-consumer or at intermediate point.
Overwrapping is again a more efficient way to wrap for several reasons.
• the kind of film it uses - Film choices.
• the amount of film it uses - Film information.
The kind of film overwrapping uses
Polyethylene film is the most commonly used film in shrink-wrapping. Polypropylene film is the most commonly used film in overwrapping and flow wrapping. Pound for pound, polyethylene is a more expensive film than polypropylene. And worse yet is more polyethylene film is used because it is first trimmed to get rid of the excess and then shrunk 20-25% to conform to the package it wraps.
Polypropylene film does not shrink. It is designed to wrap around a package with overlaps between ¼ and ½ inch. This overlap is enough to ensure a seal while minimizing film and energy consumption. It provides a nice gift-wrapped look to the package while being efficient in film use and energy consumption.
The amount of film overwrapping uses
• Overwrap uses less film than both flow-wrap and shrink wrap.
• Bundling with film reduces cardboard consumption by replacing cardboard boxes with lighter weight film. This, in turn, reduces the amount of waste consumed and placed in landfills.
• Bundling also reduces energy consumption because containers weigh less when filled with film wrapped products than with intermediate cardboard containers. They take up less space and save on shipping costs.
• Overwrappers can wrap using non-petroleum based materials such as biodegradable films, paper or waxed paper.
That overwrapping provides a safe and attractive wrap is our customer’s bonus.
Life cycle Analysis is a process for measuring your products impact from raw material through processing to consumption and disposal of remains. There are a couple of approaches to life cycle analysis.
• Cradle to Grave
• Gate to Gate
The Carbon Trust is a UK based organization measuring the carbon footprint of products. Measuring the carbon footprint is based on looking at the carbon used in creating and disposing of a product. Even if the process is the same in every manufacturing plant, the process can vary depending on the energy used for power the process, the distance traveled for the materials and the distance to the consumer. Most recently it did a measurement for Pepsi’s Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice 64 ounce container. Pepsi plans to use this to measure and track process improvement.
GreenBlue is a US based non-profit dedicated to helping businesses improve their sustainability by think about how to transform the making of things. One of their primary tools is life cycle analysis which encourages businesses to redo processes to improve their efficiency and environmental impact.
For a sample of a company embarked upon this process, look at Mark & Spencer’s Plan A. This UK retailer has a five eco plan because, as they say, ” there is no Plan B.”
Total Cost Assessment
Total Cost Assessment is the calculation of the cost of all that goes into making a product. Some of these costs are internal and some are societal. Internal costs are those that the company bears to make the product. Sometimes society tries to push the costs back to the manufacturer, for example paying for environmental clean up. Some are still born by society such as municipal trash pick up or water purification. Total Cost Assessment tries to calculate all these costs since the payor can change from society to manufacturer.
Total Cost of Ownership
Total cost of ownership is a strictly internal calculation that includes the capital cost of equipment and the operating cost including materials cost, energy, and maintenance to make a comparison between one process or piece of equipment and another.
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