Polyolefins: the first choice of material for advanced rigid packaging
The safe and reliable delivery of food has emerged as one of the major industrial concerns of our time that affects both the developing and western world. Surprisingly, some 30 percent of food losses in developing countries are the direct result of improper food packaging and failed logistics.
Compared to Western methods of packaging where plastic materials are widely used and where wastes represent less than 3 percent from farm to supermarket, these statistics are highly indicative of the strong relationship between the type of packaging material used and its ability to minimise food wastes.
The global challenge of food delivery has thus forced recognition of the importance of materials used for food packaging. Indeed, packaging materials must live up to tough requirements, safely preserving and protecting food contents without compromising the health of consumers. The materials must equally be viable commercial solutions, providing a unit cost reduction and delivering shelf appeal that is attractive to the end user.
Although the packaging industry can choose from an array of materials for food packaging, polyolefins (polyethylene and polypropylene) present a flexible and robust solution for food packaging, offering a balance between performance, processability and cost to make them the industry’s material of choice.
Driving the choice: preservation, protection, and safety
The main factors that influence the decision of food packaging materials are preservation, protection and safety. Packaging must protect the contents from physical damage and from external contamination e.g. microbiological contamination. It must preserve the quality of the contents, whether for short shelf-life of some days or for the extended shelf-life of several months. Food and water packaging must equally protect the nutritional value and taste of the contents.
More importantly, packaging must be safe and have no risk of affecting health. The intrinsically inert nature of polyethylene and polypropylene help make them ideal candidates for safe packaging and they easily comply with relevant national and international regulations.
Environmental concerns that impact material
choices
Whether considering a full life cycle analysis or the packaging conversion process alone, polyethylene and polypropylene are materials that favourably address environmental concerns such as energy consumption, climate protection, and water conservation, compared to competing and traditional packaging materials.
Polyethylene and polypropylene intrinsically offer low densities which mean low packaging unit weight. This results in an important reduction of material used and minimises waste at end of life. The materials also significantly lower fuel consumption for transport and contributes to lowering our CO2 emissions.
In addition, advanced polyolefins are recyclable or can be turned back into energy to substitute fossil fuels in clean energy recovery processes.
Adding marketing and production to the equation
Aesthetics (e.g. design, gloss/transparency), haptic properties and convenience features are all areas where packaging can greatly enhance the shelf appeal and therefore sales and consumption of food and health products.
Polyethylene and polypropylene often offer the lowest unit cost of any packaging system when combined with an optimised pack design. Their low densities and high performance levels, made possible with state-of-the-art high performance grades, offer extreme light weighting.
Borealis continuously brings polyethylene and polypropylene innovations to the markets that meet the diverse demands of the packaging industry. This is only possible with careful dialogue with each member of the packaging value chain, including the Converter, Brand Owner, Retailer and even Consumer.
5 examples of Borealis Innovations for Advanced Packaging
-
Source reduction/Light weighting from
Bormod™ BJ368MO in Thin Wall Consumer Packaging for
yellow-fats, dairy & similar markets.
A new high stiffness with high Impact polypropylene block copolymer. The exceptional flow and strength allows processors to use injection moulding to achieve packaging with walls as thin as 0.3 mm without compromising on impact resistance. -
Aesthetics/Appearance improvements from
Borpact™ SG930MO in Ice Cream packaging
A transparent polypropylene for proven Consumer appeal with impact properties designed for deep freeze storage & transportation at -20ºC. -
Processing Efficiency with Cycle time
Reduction from Bormod™ BH374MO in pail
production.
The high flow polypropylene block copolymer with high impact allows fast Injection cycle time in multiple cavities and in more demanding shapes e.g. rectangular paint pails. This allows unit cost reductions in both machine time and energy utilisation. -
Convenience e.g. easy to open,
from RE450MO in Sports-lock bottle closures
The design freedom of a random copolymer polypropylene allowing convenience features in Sports-lock’ type bottle closures but with the outstanding taste & odour properties previously only associated with the mould design limited ‘Organoleptic HDPE’ grades. -
Hot fill capability Borclear™ RF926MO in
ISBM PP for juice, dairy, sports-drink & other liquid
packaging.
The market leading injection stretch blow moulding polypropylene (ISBM PP) grade that offers outstanding transparency, high productivity & light weighting capability, while also allowing improved hot fill capability versus competing HDPE & PET bottle solutions.
