Path to Sustainability According to Nordmeccanica
- Published: December 05, 2024
Facing a unique and epochal evolution, the packaging industry is fully involved in the development of sustainability solutions. While guidelines have been issued by local authorities around the globe, uniformity is still missing. Converters are serving multinational brand owners globally and uniformity should be the rule. Larger converters are developing their own set of rules to comply as much as possible while still remaining balanced in cost/ performance. Let's discuss the role of Nordmeccanica, serving a segment of the converting industry that brings the highest need of compliance with sustainability trends.
PFFC: What is the contribution of Nordmeccanica regarding the current market trends?
Nordmeccanica: As the largest global provider of coating, laminating and metallizing machinery to the industry, installing such a large number of units yearly allows us to create the most extensive data base in our industry; one that reflects with the highest degree of reliability the state of the art.
Our product range covers the most sensitive area of the converting process influencing compliance with sustainability trends. The need to offer innovative compounds (coated, laminated, metallized) featuring recyclability while complying with packed product protection and being competitive in costs, challenges the performances of our entire product line.
Lamination of innovative substrates, application of performance coatings, metallization as a substitute of the foil, are at the cutting edge of product development and in all those aspects we are involved with our laminators, coaters and vacuum metallizers.
Describe the Nordmeccanica approach to sustainability.
We think that sustainability remains something a little more complex than the pure recyclability and compostability of flexible packaging. First, flexible packaging is not the largest contributor to waste. Other things contribute a much larger amount. Secondary sustainability should include a large overview of a product/process, and not be limited to just the end of life. Topics such as COz footprint reduction have been completely missing from the news. What about if a new technology featuring recyclability requires the consumption of a larger amount of energy or larger volumes of pollution or a larger cost of manufacturing?
We look at the conversion process as a whole, not focusing just on new flexible packaging compounds. Our attention has also been spent in the development of conversion technologies featuring lower energy consumption and lower degrees of emissions. Our approach is that a modern piece of equipment and the capital investment associated with it, projected toward several decades of use, should be in compliance with the most advanced solutions in the optimization of the efficiency of use.
Can you detail those efficiency affecting technologies?
The development of new technologies by an OEM involves a list of questions to answer at commercial and engineering levels. What is the market of reference for the new product? What is customer expectation? What is the desired ROI?
A new machine that incorporates innovation in increasing efficiency, reducing energy consumption and limiting emissions not only cuts investment cost for ancillaries associated with the project, but also means a much faster ROI and production cost reduction affecting the lifespan of the machine. In this sense Nordmeccanica has been involved in the use of efficient components and technologies in our equipment for years.
Regenerative motors and drives are part of our standard products. It means our machines are self-generating a portion of the electric power they use. 20 to 25 percent of the energy consumption of a Nordmeccanica coater, laminator or metallizer is self-generated, very much addressing sustainability. All of our motors and mechanical components are high efficiency and low passive inertia, meaning less power required and higher sophistication in process control. Our software comes with an integrated power management system to monitor energy consumption and apply remedies toward lower energy consumption.
For over 40 years, Nordmeccanica pioneered new technologies in lamination featuring no emissions. Currently we offer customers innovative laminators that can convert up to 3-ply in a single pass easily and efficiently using only solvent-free adhesives. On the dry bond side, for those applications requiring a drying system, we have developed a proprietary oven to dry adhesives and coatings at the highest efficiencies in the industry with shorter ovens featuring very low energy consumption and a significantly optimized rate of emissions.
What about the new structures for flexible packaging developed for recycling?
Nordmeccanica products cover the most significant segment of the conversion process involved in the achievement of recycling targets. Lamination, coating and vacuum metallization are all steps of the conversion process involved in the production of flexible packaging-related structures. In order to comply with "recyclability" requirements, option one is the "Mono-Material" structure. In other words a regulated percentage of the mass of the packaging needs to be made of the same material.
There are multiple approaches: The mono-polyolefin involves both PE and PP; some of the mechanical properties on product protection can be taken care by the PP layer. In the mono-PE structures is the PE that has to take care of all aspects. This is the reason why a new family of PE films has been developed. MDOPE is in fact the solution. Through the extrusion process, the PE-based film achieves new properties that help a structure made exclusively by polyethylene better address product protection targets. That comes at a cost for the OEM.
The lamination, coating and metallizing process now face new challenges, once dealing with films that need a delicate web handling and a sophisticated tension control. Nordmeccanica has been on the forefront of innovation in web handling since early days and now, thanks to our technical solutions, can offer entry-level laminators all the way to the most complex conversion lines, MDOPE-ready equipment. That specifically covers the Vacuum Metallization side of our business with technical solutions developed to vacuum metallize traditionally or even with AlOx on MDOPE films.
Is the reduction of laminated layers a current target within the industry?
That is a misconception. The target is not a lower number of layers, but for all film layers to be uniform in chemistry to qualify for recycling. Regulations call for a minimum amount of mono material in the final compound. Currently there is not a uniform limit applicable worldwide. In general regulations are oriented around the 90 percent value, meaning in the final pouch something like 90 percent needs to be made out of the same film (or chemically uniform films), regardless of the number of layers. The remaining 10 percent is the amount left to all the rest: Ink, adhesive, functional coatings, metallization.
One of the qualities required for flexible packaging is, at different rates, barrier: oxygen, water vapors, fat, etc. When you eliminate substrates such as PET or foil from the pouch structure then the barrier needs to be built through metallization and functional coatings (barrier-enhancing coatings). We're learning more layers may allow for more flexible conversion and the achievement of higher barrier results.
Some high barrier structures have proven that a 3-layers mono-material compound can achieve better and more consistently high barrier levels in full respect of the regulatory limits on mass percent-age. Laminating 3-layers, thanks to our solution on the subject, the Triplex One Shot laminator, allows to convert 3-ply laminations at a fraction of the energy absorbed by the traditional 3-ply process and with no emissions.
And what about paper?
We have seen a significant increase in orders toward paper conversion, applying the same logic as in the mono-material film case. Paper must be at a minimum percentage to recycle within the paper stream. It is a solution for many cases, not all, being paper available at a cost for natural resources. Nordmeccanica has a line of products to serve the lamination and functional coatings market. All of our products meet the majority of paper specification used in the flexible packaging industry.