FLEXIBLES: FILMDEVELOPMENTS
Innovations in the filmsector are hard to come by, says Barry, but recently things have changed
Innovating filmfor profit
Barry Twigg ofNational Flexible talks us through the latest filmdevelopments and howthey can be utilised
Retailers and packaging manufacturers, aswell as the public, allwant to see us use less food packaging aswell as seeing us use higher re-cycled content. That’swhat the Courtauld Agreement is all about andwhat every packaging supplier is trying to achieve.
T
Barry Twigg is CEO of National Flexible, packaging film specialists. For more information, visit
www.nationalflexible.co.uk.
herefore these objectives drive many of our decisions in the
packaging sector. But sometimes, the equally strong desire by the buyers to reduce costs can create conflict. In the flexible packaging
sector, genuine innovations in film are hard to come by, but we have recently become aware of
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PackagingGazette.co.uk
is a new type of PE (polyethylene) film which could make a significant difference to the volume of packaging used and, as a consequence, how much ends up being recycled. PE has been around for such a
long time that it’s difficult to conceive of innovations in producing this material that have not already been developed. PE film is either blown or cast and almost every manufacturer of any size have their own lines, so PE is both cheap and plentiful. As a consequence of its history, the range of PE films is huge with variants for every conceivable application. However, after a development period of nearly 20 years, we
have now seen PE film produced by biaxial orientation similar to the BOPP manufacturing process. PE produced in this way is more stable, has better mechanical properties, higher clarity, gloss, and flatness. These additional qualities may seem prosaic but they combine to broaden the applications in which PE can be used.
BOPE (BIAXIALLY ORIENTED POLYETHYLENE) In my opinion, BOPE offers a number of benefits. First of all, thickness is massively increased. A reduction of up to 50 per cent can be achieved with all the attendant savings in weight of packaging, waste generated, material
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