ROVEMA: TACKLING THE MULTI-MATERIAL AND SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES Demand for sustainable packaging solutions is continuously growing. Consumers nowadays often demand paper packaging for their products, which poses a range of challenges to packaging machines. Sometimes, of course, flexible plastics packaging, especially monomaterials, remain a better packaging material both from a sustainability and functionality point of view. Here, the flexibility of being able to seamlessly switch between paper and flexible plastics is key. Elisabeth Skoda discusses the challenges and opportunities when it comes to packaging demanding products in both plastics and paper with ROVEMA, and looks at trends and solutions in the sector.
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rands are increasingly concerned about the potential publicity and damage that can result from images of their branded plastic packaging in the waste stream or being featured in discussions of sustainability and waste. As a consequence, food manufacturers face the urgent challenge of reducing plastic, increasing paper and increasing recyclability, while simultaneously mitigating the negative impacts on manufacturing efficiency, logistics and product safety and quality. Ingo Hamel, ROVEMA’s Head of Innovation and R&D is keen to point out that ROVEMA has already been involved with paper packaging materials for several years. “For the past three years, we have had a machine in our test centre dedicated exclusively to paper packaging material testing. Here we test the latest developments both based on specific customer requests or in direct cooperation with packaging material manufacturers. This way we can support customers at an early stage in the decision-making process for machine-compatible paper packaging materials” A pack is only as good as its seal, so the company also continuously develops them further, for example through special geometries, better heat distribution and heat transfer.
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“The optimized motion control of our machines enables us to realize the longest possible sealing times per cycle. We also consistently and continuously adapt our machine software to the special requirements of new packaging materials. The servo-motor drives thus run with even smoother movements to start in a soft manner, reducing forces on packaging material and machine,” says Mr Hamel.
Material flexibility ROVEMA’s machines have been prepared for processing a wide variety of paper packaging materials, he adds. “Today, there are paper material options for products that require only low barrier properties, and whose machine processability and output rates are almost equal to plastic composite results. “In principle, we are able to convert any existing machine to specific bag shapes or to new alternative packaging materials, including papers, at the customer’s site.” However, as things stand today, paper is not yet the best solution for all packaging tasks, and it is important to understand paper as a packaging material, which differs seriously from plastic packaging materials in terms of handling, look and feel.
