Page 50 - Packaging News magazine November-December 2022

INNOVATION AT K-FAIR
About the author:
Michael Grima is an independent industrial designer and packaging design specialist with his own design consultancy qDesign Enterprises. Currently he advises various brands on their packaging sustainability and works as a Solutions Designer for Coles Own Brand Packaging Sustainability team.
Top row, left and centre: Illig’s Paper IML-T cardboard package
Top row right: Kiefel’s paper-based thermoformed products.
Above: Kiefel’s Natureformer KFT90. Right: Cerex EPS Foam replacement
from corn husk waste.
Far right: Plastics traceability tool R-Cycle in action.
Below: Australian products made with Martogg’s PCR resins.
the market looks beyond injection moulded IML packs towards increased output and reduced weight to combat the higher cost of mandated PCR or renewable feedstocks targets.
Kiefel showcased its sustainability award-winning Natureformer KFT90, while also displaying its smaller R&D system – KFT Lab. Kiefel’s thermoform- ing process uses a paper liquid slurry mix that can be curated to meet cus- tomer-specific paper barrier needs. Two separate moulding stations are deployed using water-extraction cold and hot presses to reduce the end packaging moisture content to seven per cent. Although the process has a slow cycle rate and thick walls, it has found some uptake by brands like Conagra Foods, where non-plastic packaging alterna- tives are desired by consumers.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY FORUM
Apart from the staple trade halls, spe- cialist platforms were created, including the Open Area Circular Economy Forum. Exhibitors on display covered a wide gamut – from cereal processing equipment supplier Cerex, harvesting production waste to be reprocessed as an EPS foam replacement, to large scale stand-alone plastics recycling and processing machine suppliers such as Erema, showcasing its latest INTAREMA TVEplus DuaFil Compact PCR recycling and de-odourising line. Run daily, the Intarema line produced odour-optimised, food con- tact-approved, polyolefin recyclate from PCR flexible material in a mix of forms.
End PCR product was also show- cased, including Australian examples from Wellman Packaging, Great Wrap and Impact Packaging, made from Melbourne-based Martogg’s PCR resins, cleaned and reprocessed by Martogg’s Erema line.
Evidence of the combining trends of digitisation, circularity and traceability via collaboration could be found with
several track-and-trace models being shown at K-Fair. One growing pilot with presence at the Circular Economy Forum was R-Cycle.
R-Cycle is a cross-company initia- tive to develop an open and globally applicable traceability standard for sus- tainable plastic packaging. It records all recycling-relevant information at every touchpoint in the value chain in the form of a digital product passport.
The tracing technology behind R-Cycle is based on GS1 standards and with 26 major companies already on board, the same digital watermark technology that captures all packaging data along the supply chain will be rec- ognised in modern sorting systems such as Holy Grail 2.0.
THE FUTURE
Beyond all the buzzwords and trends, the industry is currently racing to adopt a new order and attempting to land on a common system. As with any industrial revolution, there will be rapid expan- sion and fragmentation before a period of rationalisation. We are just at the dawn of this journey.
Today, players in the industry are awash with a myriad initiatives and sys- tems being developed and implemented, all aiming to achieve net zero. Few will survive, many will fail; many will merge to find what one hopes will be a cohe- sive, at scale, traceable system, that can decouple society from its reliance on primarily non-renewable feedstock, to meet the demands of a sophisticated, ever-expanding global community. ■
50 ❙ NOVEMBER – DECEMBER 2022
WWW.PACKAGINGNEWS.COM.AU