Stretching the palletising envelope

New developments in palletising sustainability offers brand owners and logistics companies more efficient packaging solutions for improved pallet-load stability. By delivering significant material savings and an enhanced sustainability footprint, Dow are leading the way in overcoming today’s sustainability challenges in partnership with other key players.

Load security represents a major challenge for supplychain and freight industries, and it is estimated that more than 4% of the products transported every year on the roads of Europe are either lost, or are arriving damaged. Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics has been looking at the perspective of two main industries representing the largest consumers of flexible packaging, to work on new developments that ensure a better overall performance of load packaging systems. These take into consideration the type of application and the interaction between all the different packaging components, whilst addressing cost efficiencies and their environmental impact.

Lighter and Brighter

In the case of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), the requirements of a typical beverage producer were used in the trials to optimise palletisation, combining stretch wrap and collation shrink for bottles or cans packaging. Dow’s ELITE™ AT Resins enabled a reduction of the thickness of stretch wrap film, while INNATE™ Precision Packaging Resins helped to downgauge the collation shrink film.

The overall optimised packaging system resulted in a 25% material saving and improved optics, puncture, tear and elongation of the films, compared to incumbent solutions. The flexible packaging consumption was also reduced from 2,606 grams to only 1,942 grams per pallet, whilst load stability performance was significantly improved. Overall CO2 consumption was also reduced by 219 MT for one packaging line per year (considering a standard line with an average productivity of 21 pallets per hour). The requirements of a typical chemical producer were examined to find a more efficient way of palletising industrial goods such as cement, chemicals, fertilizers, or seeds.

In this case, Dow’s XZ89507.00 resin provided the opportunity to move from EVA-based stretch hood to an all-PE one, allowing for more robust, lighter and flexible packaging. INNATE™ Precision Packaging Resins enabled downgauging of the heavy-duty shipping sacks. The resulting all-PE optimised packaging system provided 14% flexible packaging consumption savings compared with incumbent solutions.

The flexible packaging consumption per pallet was reduced from 6,278 to 5,383 grams whilst maintaining load stability performance. CO2 emissions were also significantly reduced by 210 MT for one packaging line per year (considering a standard line with an average productivity of 15 pallets per hour).

New flexible solutions

By working in close collaboration with ITENE Research Centre, Dow succeeded in addressing the challenges faced by industrial and consumer industries when packing and shipping goods and their need for combining multiple packaging components in their operations. “Months of product testing have led to the design of new flexible packaging solutions that optimise the overall performance of the packaging systems. This has resulted in significantly lighter pallets that provide up to 25% material savings and a reduction in CO2 emissions.

All this whilst maintaining or improving load stability performance,” commented Helga Gomez, marketing manager Industrial and Consumer Packaging at Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics. “We are addressing load stability challenges by taking a holistic approach,” continued Gomez. “We believe collaboration across the value chain is critical to enable the successful evaluation and improvement of packaging technologies and for the development of load stability solutions that meet industry requirements and regulatory standards.” Through value chain collaboration and a holistic, solutiondriven approach, Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics have been able to co-design novel packaging systems that are more efficient in improving pallet load stability, whilst also offering retailers, brand owners and supply chain managers significant cost efficiencies and opportunities to enhance their sustainability footprint.

Progress through Partnership

The results were presented at the Load Stability Academy onOctober 25th, co-hosted by Dow and ITENE at their testing facilities in Valencia, Spain. The event brought together stakeholders from across the value chain and provided the opportunity to discuss new legislation and standards, address market trends and challenges, and to see firsthand the benefits of the new films’ developments based on Dow’s technologies. “The load stability challenge cannot be addressed in isolation by Dow, or a film producer, or ITENE. Our collaboration with Dow and other partners throughout the value chain is fundamental to share knowledge and experience to drive new practices and innovations forward,” commented Javier Zabaleta, ITENE’s managing director.

For further information visit: www.dow.com

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