The Flexible Packaging Blog

Reviews, trends, and tips covering all things flexible packaging to protect your products and your bottom line.

Blog Feature

Packaging Materials | Environment

By: Nathan Dube
January 10th, 2023

Do your customers have access to a home composting pile? What about an industrial composting facility? Suppose you answered no to these questions for the majority of your customers. In that case, compostable packaging is not a sustainable choice for you and your customers. For compostable packaging to properly biodegrade, it requires one of the two options listed above. So, if your customers do not have access to these items, you will want to make sure to provide them with sustainable alternatives to compostable packaging. But what other types of sustainable packaging are out there? And which ones are the best alternatives to compostable packaging? This article will review the top 3 sustainable alternatives to compostable packaging. After reading this article, you can provide several sustainable packaging options to your customers who cannot properly dispose of compostable packaging.

Blog Feature

Packaging Materials | Environment

By: Nathan Dube
January 3rd, 2023

If you are like many companies today, you are looking for ways to make your company more earth-friendly. And biodegradable stretch film is an excellent way to achieve this goal! There are several biodegradable stretch films currently available. Each of them has its own pros and cons. But which type of biodegradable stretch film is right for your business? This will largely depend on your specific sustainability and budgetary requirements. What is suitable for your competitors may be wrong for you. But how do you decide which type of biodegradable stretch film is right for your company? In order to figure this out, you will have to consider a few things before making a purchase. These include composability or the lack thereof, material formulations, recyclability, cost, lead times, and other pertinent elements of the film you wish to purchase. After reading this article, you can figure out which type of biodegradable stretch film is right for your company!

Blog Feature

Packaging Materials | Environment

By: Nathan Dube
December 27th, 2022

Plastic and sustainability are not two words you find in the same phrase very often. After all, with the terrible repercussions of plastic use, such as the great pacific garbage patch and the increasing presence of microplastics in the environment, plastics are anything but environmentally friendly, right? Think again. Much of what you have heard about plastics in mainstream media, online forums and social media websites are often short on facts while boasting questionable numbers. When you actually take the time to look at the science of sustainability and compare the life cycle assessments of the most popular packaging materials such as glass, metal, plastic, cardboard, paperboard, and paper, plastics come out as the most sustainable option almost every time. So why is it that whenever we hear about plastics on the evening news or social media, it is always something about how bad they are for the environment? And that brings us to today's topic: The Plastic Apocalypse. Now, when most people hear the word apocalypse, they think of things like "the end of the world" or perhaps "a nuclear explosive event." But the word apocalypse does not mean the end of the world. Our modern English word apocalypse comes from the ancient Greek word apokálupsis, which means to reveal or revelation. And that is precisely what this article is going to be. A revealing of the truth about plastic sustainability: after reading this article, you will have a much better understanding of plastic sustainability and its effect on the natural environment.

Blog Feature

Packaging Materials | Environment | The Business of Packaging | Investment | Packaging Design | Food Packaging | Packaging Psychology

By: David Roberge
December 15th, 2022

A brand’s commitment to adopting environmentally conscious practices has become increasingly important to today’s consumers. As more people recognize the need for environmental awareness, shoppers prefer companies that take steps to reduce their environmental impact and ecological footprint. So, where does sustainable labeling fit into the mix, and how can it help boost trust in your product? In this article, we will explain why sustainable labeling is such an essential part of your labeling process in a world where ever more people are demanding their favorite brands "go green."

Blog Feature

Packaging Materials | Environment

By: Nathan Dube
December 13th, 2022

Post-industrial recycled stretch film such as steelflex green is an excellent way to make your company and packaging line more sustainable. And, with the continual call from the public for companies to "go green," it is an excellent option for any business looking to make their stretch wrapping more earth-friendly. In today's market, businesses need to think about the different ways in which they can do their part to make less of an impact on planet earth. One way in which many companies are trying to do this is by switching from virgin packaging materials to post-consumer recycled and post-industrial recycled alternatives. This makes steelflex green a perfect choice for people looking to use more PIR and PCR packaging on their packaging line. But what are the benefits of using steelflex green post-industrial recycled stretch film? Is this film the right solution for your business to become more environmentally friendly? After reading this article, you will have a good idea of whether or not steelflex green is the right sustainable stretch film option for your business.

Blog Feature

Packaging Materials | Packaging Design

By: Nathan Dube
December 6th, 2022

In our digitally connected world, we go through many corrugated boxes—just Amazon alone ships millions of packages to customers worldwide. Do you have empty cardboard boxes sitting unused in your house somewhere? Yeah, me too! You are probably wondering what to do with them. You could toss them in the recycling bin and hope they get recycled. But, with contamination issues in single-stream recycling, how do you know if they are really getting recycled? Single-stream recycling is the most widespread recycling platform in the USA. For consumers who use it, here is how it works. Consumers are given two bins from their waste management vendor. The vendor drops off one bin for trash and one bin for recycling. All recyclable materials are tossed into the recycling bin. The waste management company picks up the bin and transports the materials. They deliver the materials to a warehouse. In the warehouse, the materials are sorted for recycling. Any materials contaminated with food particles, liquids, or other contaminants are sent to a landfill. This is where contamination becomes an issue. Many consumers do not adequately clean and dry the materials before putting them in the recycling bin. When this happens, any contaminated materials end up in a landfill. When it comes to contamination issues, you could always throw these materials in the trash. But do you really want to do that? Corrugated cardboard that ends up in the landfill takes up a lot of space. It produces tons of methane, one of the most destructive greenhouse gasses known today. Wouldn't it be cool if there was something else that you could do with all those empty boxes? Something besides just throwing them away? What if there was a way to reuse the boxes? There may be another way to recycle them with the assurance that they will be recycled. What if you could turn all those boxes into something useful or even a work of art? Are there ways to put these empty containers to better use? Well, the short answer is YES! From charitable causes like Give Back Box to artisanal expressions of high art and pop culture, there are many different things you can do to reuse and recycle all those empty cardboard boxes. With over sixty-five years in the packaging industry, Industrial Packaging is no stranger to corrugated boxes. We know the complications in recycling that come with this type of packaging. But we also have some extraordinary ways for you to repurpose those boxes. We also know about the various sustainable alternatives to corrugated boxes. These can help make your packaging more environmentally friendly. In this article, we will explore some of the charitable and creative ways that you can reduce, reuse, and recycle corrugated boxes. Additionally, we explore some of the sustainable alternatives to cardboard boxes.