Laurel Brunner: Tracking trends in pack - aging printing: Q: What’s the biggest change that’s happening right now in the world of packaging? For me, the move to replace plastics with paper is the big thing. Recycling is ob- viously important, and the whole awareness of the damage that plastics do is something most big brands are very sensitive about, so they’re trying to move away from that. Products that are traditional- ly made as complex laminates can now be made with single materi- als. They still do the job they’re supposed to do, but they use pa- per – which is recyclable. It’s an interesting area, but it’s still early days. Laurel Brunner Q: Are there any other trends you’re following? The other trend that’s important to consider, I think, is flexographic printing with ECG, extending the core CMYK ink set without having to buy spe- cial inks. That’s a big trend because it saves money and it saves waste. But also from a producer point of view, it makes sense because it costs less. Q: Is there a technological development that really stands out for you?
Flexo Innovation (Cont’d from Page 1)
Frozen food is maybe the best example. It doesn’t require heavy packaging because it’s stored in a cooler environment. The shelf-life doesn’t come from the packaging itself; it comes from the envi- ronment that it’s stored in. So we’ve seen a huge shift there: I’d say 90 per- cent of our frozen food clients are now using only surface printed polyethylene – nothing else. And of course, surface-printed PE is effectively 100 percent recyclable. That’s one sector where we’ve seen a huge shift. The challenge we have is that for some products – such as a bag of chips, for example, no other packaging is going to offer the same shelf life at the same price point as the traditional laminate struc- ture people are using right now. Q: What are the big challenges in your opinion? In India, concepts like biodegradability, composta- bility and recyclability are still very new. Trying to find a way to implement these ideas is going to take time. Waste collection and recyclability are the big challenges here. Just changing the packaging is not going to help unless it is segregated at the user level, collected and recycled. What’s missing at the moment is the financial incentive for the waste to be collected, segregated and recycled properly.
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4 July 17, 2023 Flexo Market News
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