Hallie Forcinio

Source reduction

Source reduction means consuming less material through lightweighting or downgauging a package or eliminating one of its components. Redesigned closures are one lightweighting strategy. Short-skirt closures, which are particularly popular in the beverage industry, reduce the amount of plastic in the closure itself and in the neck finish of the bottle. It is common to save about 1.5 g per container–closure. This reduction might not sound like a lot, but it adds up quickly during a production run and cuts resin use by thousands of pounds and packaging costs by thousands, if not millions, of dollars per year.

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Another way to remove weight from packaging is by switching to a lighter material. In the past 30 years, many food products have been switched from glass to polyethylene terephthalate (PET), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), polypropylene, or multilayer plastic containers. With the high-barrier coating and oxygen-scavenger technologies now available, more oxygen-sensitive products such as beer and wine are being packed in PET instead of glass. Compared with traditional glass containers, PET bottles consume less energy in production, distribution, and recycling and result in a smaller carbon footprint.

Sutter Home Winery (St. Helena, CA) has added a 187-mL size to its PET container lineup. The custom-designed bottle features an internal silicon-oxide barrier coating to protect product shelf life (Plas-max PET bottles, Ball, Broomfield, CO).

Four bubble diameters ranging from 0.125 to 0.250 in. make it possible to match air-filled Astro-Bubble Green cushioning to various surface-protection and void-fill needs. (PHOTO IS COURTESY OF PREGIS.)

Although it requires measures to ensure that the product is adequately protected, reducing the use of corrugated in distribution packaging is a common source- and cost-reduction strategy. In a survey by the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute, 51% of respondents said they intend to reduce corrugated consumption by replacing regular slotted cases with bliss boxes or overwrapped trays. Respondents already using overwrapped trays are achieving additional material savings by adopting overwrapped pads or overwrap alone.

Stackable short-skirt designs cut closure weight by 20% and permit 60% more closures to be included in each shipping case. (PHOTO IS COURTESY OF INNOVATIVE MOLDING.)

Another source-reduction tactic, eliminating a packaging element, not only saves material and reduces package weight and transportation costs, but also may reduce package size, thereby enabling more product to be stacked per pallet.

A silicon-oxide coating imparts sufficient barrier properties to polyethylene terephthalate to protect wine in a 187-mL bottle. (PHOTO IS COURTESY OF BALL.)