22 minute read
Packaging Technology
ANNE MARIE MOHAN | SENIOR EDITOR, PACKAGING WORLD
Plastic Packaging Might Not Be So Bad, After All
A lifecycle analysis of plastic packaging vs. alternative materials for several di erent applications found that the majority of plastic packages contribute fewer greenhouse gases.
AMID THE ONGOING DEMONIZATION of single-use plastic packaging, McKinsey & Co. has published a thought-provoking report on the “Climate Impacts of Plastics,” and the conclusions might surprise you. When examining the total greenhouse gas (GHG) contribution of plastics vs. its alternatives, including product lifecycle (cradle to grave) and impact of use, the global consulting firm found that among those applications for which non-plastic alternatives are used at scale, the plastics examined in the report had a lower total GHG contribution compared with alternatives in 13 of 14 cases, including both direct and indirect value-chain emissions. These GHG savings ranged from 10 to 90%, considering both product lifecycle and impact of use.
Furthermore, the report noted, when indirect impacts were excluded, such as lower food spoilage in the case of food packaging, and only direct lifecycle emissions, including production, retail transport, and end-of-life disposition, plastics had the lowest GHG impact in nine of the 14 applications.
“Plastics are ubiquitous across the global economy and the subject of frequent debate, from their impact on marine pollution to their recyclability,” McKinsey says. “However, their role in enhancing use e ciencies, such as decreasing food spoilage and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, is often overlooked. Rather, plastics are frequently maligned across topics such as leakage to the environment, toxicity, use of resources, production emissions, and ocean pollution. Although these important considerations need to be addressed, an opportunity exists for a more balanced, science-based perspective on plastics vs. alternative materials.”
The 30-page document includes information on the markets selected—packaging, building and construction, automotive, textiles, and consumer durables, which represent around 90% of plastics volume—the methodology used, and in-depth details on several of the applications studied. McKinsey’s analysis was based on the U.S. market in 2020, with additional sensitivities to illustrate the impact in other regions and how results will change as the global environment moves toward a “decarbonized world” in 2050.
Among the findings of the report related to packaging in the U.S.: • When high-density polyethylene (HDPE) grocery bags are compared with the next-best alternative, paper bags, HDPE packaging is found to have 80% fewer total GHGs. • Wet pet-food packaging in PET and polypropylene vs. aluminum or steel packaging has 70% fewer emissions. • PET soft drink containers emit 50% fewer GHGs than aluminum bottles. • Fresh meat packaging made from expanded polystyrene or polyvinyl chloride has a 35% smaller GHG footprint compared with fresh meat packaging made from paper. • When comparing plastics vs. plastics-enabled mixed materials, McKinsey found that HDPE milk containers have 5% greater GHG emissions than paper, while the GHG emissions of EPS water cups and paper cups are on par.
One of the applications chosen for a deep-dive
analysis in the report is soft drink containers. McKinsey based its analysis on a comparison of 20-oz PET bottles with 12-oz aluminum cans and 12-oz glass bottles, selected because they represent the most common beverage container sizes for their respective material substrates. According to the lifecycle analysis, PET bottles have the lowest emissions of all the materials, due to their lightweight properties and the low amount of energy required to produce them. “By contrast, aluminum cans have two times the emissions of PET bottles, and emissions from glass bottles are three times higher,” the report says.
While the PET bottle has the lowest production emissions, the lifecycle analysis found that it has the least favorable GHG emissions for its endof-life disposition. “PET has the lowest recycling rate and credits from avoided virgin production among the three materials. It also has the highest emissions from waste-to-energy. PET releases CO2 when burned, whereas aluminum and glass do not,” the report explains. “However, the GHG impact of production emissions is more significant than end-of-life disposition emissions, resulting in PET having the lowest GHG impact.”
In its study, McKinsey also found that the indirect value-chain impacts of plastics can be quite substantial, particularly in the case of plastic used in food packaging. “There are few at-scale alternatives to plastic in food packaging across a broad range of applications, driven primarily by reduced food spoilage when using plastics,” the report says.
In evaluating 20 common food categories, McKinsey found that plastic packaging is used in more than 90% of products sold in six categories, including fresh and frozen meat, breakfast cereal, yogurt, cheese, still bottled water, and frozen food. In another eight categories—milk, edible oil, chocolate, nut and seed mixes, cookies, packaged bread, juice, and rice—plastic is present in the packaging of more than 50% of the products sold. Notes the report, “These figures translate to a significant but unquantified GHG benefit from plastics.”
Through its analysis of di erent product categories and applications, McKinsey successfully conveys that a multitude of factors must be weighed and balanced to select the most environmentally friendly material. The trick, the company advises, is to know how much the positives outweigh the negatives.
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Smirnoff Recycling Program Targets Chicago Glass Bottles
SMIRNOFF HAS PARTNERED with the Don’t Trash Glass (DTG) campaign, a combined e ort with the Glass Packaging Institute and GlassKing Recovery & Recycling, to collect ready-to-recycle glass bottles across Chicagoland. Those bottles will be processed by Smirno ’s glass partners and transported to the Smirno packaging plant in Plainfield, Ill., to be filled and delivered to stores nationwide.
“Smirno is packaged and bottled in Plainfield, so it was important we started this movement right here in our backyard,” says Ed Pilkington, chief marketing and innovation o cer at Smirno parent company Diageo. “When it comes to the environment, the way we can all help the planet is by doing our part to better our communities, and Chicago is just the beginning for Smirno .”
Alongside DTG, Smirno will educate bartenders, back-of-house sta , employees, custodians, and others who deal directly with waste management to encourage them to adopt more sustainable practices.
“This partnership with Smirno helps support educational and relationship-building opportunities with local restaurants and bars so they can be at the forefront of glass recycling,” says Scott DeFife, president of the Glass Packaging Institute. “Encouraging these businesses to be influencers within the glass recycling process will have long-lasting e ects, not only on our environment but also on the glass manufacturing and supply-chain process.”
Rose King, COO of GlassKing Recovery & Recycling, shares a similar sentiment. “This initiative is a good indicator of the need for systems to be put in place, not just in Chicago, but around the country to create a more circular economy for glass,” she says.
The program supports Smirno and Diageo’s commitment to “reimagine packaging and become sustainable by design,” a key goal outlined in the company’s 10-year action plan, Society 2030: Spirit of Progress.
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Automation Shines Sugarlands Distilling at
Automated processes provide operational e ciency for the growth experienced by this producer of moonshine and other alcoholic beverages. The greenfi eld project contains the country’s largest distilling pot and wins a Manufacturing Innovation Award from ProFood World.
AVALLEY LOCATED in the north-central Smoky Mountains, known as the Sugarlands, is steeped in American folklore. Europeans settled in the area around the turn of the 19th century, bringing with them their tradition of whiskey distillation. First to avoid a steep tax hike and later amid U.S. Prohibition, they made their unaged corn-based alcohol by the light of the moon to conceal their illegal activity—becoming known as moonshiners.
Fast forward to the 21st century, and legal moonshine whiskey—often sold in mason jars to evoke a southern tradition for preserving food and alcohol alike—has found a home in the hearts of many consumers. The demand for moonshine is expected to grow signifi cantly, not just in the U.S. but around the globe, according to Future Market Insights.
Sugarlands Distilling, winner of a 2022 Manufacturing Innovation Award from ProFood World, needed a new facility because of its 40% growth rate each year. The company was founded nearly a decade ago in Gatlinburg, Tenn., and all production and retail space were in Gatlinburg up until last year. Due to exponential growth in product demand, a second facility with a 25,000-sq-ft distillery and a 25,000-sq-ft barrel house storage area was constructed about 20 miles away in Kodak, Tenn.
“Now we do all of our blending, batching, and bottling out of the new facility,” states Greg Eidam, Sugarlands’ head distiller. “We continue to distill and mash in Gatlinburg, and now we’ve added additional mashing and distilling capacity with the new facility in Kodak.”
Over the past eight years, Sugarlands Distilling has built its distribution network to 46 states, Eidam says. “With the added distillation capacity, we can produce about 5,000 barrels per year with the current equipment. And with our [new] blending, batching, and bottling capacity, we can produce over a million cases a year now.”
A $28 million investment was made in the Kodak facility to produce multiple brands, such as Sugarlands Shine, which includes multiple fl avors as well as Prohibition-style moonshine; Appalachian Sipping Creams (cream liqueurs); High Rock Vodka; and Roaming Man Tennessee Straight Rye Whiskey.
Automation and controls
Even in challenging economies, history has shown that consumers continue to purchase alcohol. During the COVID-19 pandemic, while restaurant and bar sales stalled, in-home consumption grew. The whiskey industry is growing by leaps and bounds now that legislation has changed across the country,
PHOTOS BY JOYCE FASSL
Lead Distiller Andrew Holt and Distiller Matthew Sauer oversee the mash process on one of the four fermenters used to make moonshine.
according to Brett Rygalski, senior project manager with Matrix Technologies. “New distilleries are opening in every state,” he says.
“From a cash fl ow standpoint, our business did very well through COVID,” Eidam says. At the pandemic’s start, Tennessee remained open for business, and the Gatlinburg area was one of the few places tourists could visit.
In fact, Sugarlands’ fi rst meeting with facility, process, and automation design provider Matrix Technologies occurred just as the U.S. went on lockdown. Matrix was awarded the automation and controls project, and after an initial meeting, neither company met in person again for more than a year. Matrix was tasked to fi nish the engineering e orts, automate the facility, and start up and commission the new process in a plant that was already constructed. In addition, major distilling equipment was already purchased and in the fabrication stage.
“When we fi rst met, there was a slab on the ground with a pile of steel for the building,” Rygalski recalls. “We had to get everything to fi t
s Mason jars are the typical package of choice for moonshine, shown here with various products from the distillery.
Maintenance Manager Dan Hatfi eld checks system parameters in the blending room.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SUGARLANDS DISTILLING
inside that footprint. And some of the equipment was already specifi ed. Getting all of that to fi t within the spatial constraints was certainly a puzzle.”
The fi rst step of the project was to develop piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs) that provide the groundwork for how the process is to be defi ned and operated. For this particular distillation process, the pot still size was the most critical aspect of the overall plant design. Matrix engineered the system to size the fermenters, the cooker, and the grain handling system. Once this process design was fi nished, utility systems could be sized, including the chiller, cooling tower, reverse osmosis (RO) system, boiler, and air compressor.
The second, and probably most important, function of the P&IDs is the control philosophy, states Rygalski. “Every process should have a degree of automation and manual control.” The P&IDs designate which items are automated and provide feedback to the control system for operator intervention. The level of automation includes fl uid transfers, control valves, level instrumentation, speed control, and utility system interfaces.
The next step was working with vendors for equipment sizing and specifi cations. Finally, the system was designed to produce dozens of recipes.
Proper cleaning of the common equipment was an important design consideration, says Rygalski. Matrix worked with clean in place (CIP) vendor M.G. Newell to design a system that could clean multiple pathways, color variations, and material viscosities to ensure that the equipment was properly sterilized between production runs and could eliminate any cross-contamination of materials.
After completing the process design, Matrix engineers completed the controls electrical design. This included the design of six separate control panels, including utilities, holding/blending, product unloading, cooking, alcohol, and grain handling. “Separate control panels allow the fl exibility for the facility to operate each system independently,” explains Rygalski. “By architecting the control system this way, it also allows for a more streamlined approach when it relates to any potential future expansion.”
PHOTO BY AARON HAND
s The new barrel house can hold 22,000 barrels. Due to growing product demand, a second barrel house will be built nearby in the next year or so.
Matrix installed a Rockwell Automation ControlLogix control system, according to Victor Bertorelli, an automation control engineer with Matrix Technologies. “The challenge was that, while there were existing automated control systems for brewing, there was nothing on the market that fi t Sugarlands’ needs,” he states.
The facility’s control system was designed using Rockwell Automation’s ControlLogix hardware, FactoryTalk Batch, and a FactoryTalk View SE distributed human-machine interface (HMI). The process runs from an HMI or handheld tablets, allowing operators to open and close valves and start pumps individually. The exception to this is product fl ow path confi guration, permissives, fault monitoring, and interlocks associated with moving product into and out of the blending tank based on operator-entered material weight setpoints. “Additionally, PID loops were implemented for temperature and pressure control of the process vessels,” states Rygalski. The main characteristics of the Sugarlands plantwide control system (PWCS) are fl exibility, quality, throughput, and asset utilization.
Flexibility: Sugarlands constantly introduces new products or variations of existing products. A control system that rapidly adapts to a variety of fl avors allows the marketing team to be creative
PHOTO BY AARON HAND
WHEN SUGARLANDS started its distilling business, it wanted to stay true to traditional moonshine roots. “We started with a 250-gal pot still when we opened, and then we added a 750-gal pot still,” Eidam explains. “We love the whiskey we get from a pot still. It is going to be richer and fuller-bodied because we’re not rectifying it as much as a column still. With a pot still not being as e cient, we typically average 120 to 125 proof, whereas a column still is typically 145 to 155 proof.”
Sugarlands commissioned still supplier Vendome to build a 4,500-gal pot still, the largest ever built for the U.S. When designing the Kodak facility, Sugarlands looked fi ve years into the future when it expects to be producing a lot more whiskey, especially for its Roaming Man Tennessee Straight Rye Whiskey.
PHOTO BY JOYCE FASSL
Head Distiller Greg Eidam stands next to the country’s largest pot still located in Kodak, Tenn. The pot still was designed to handle growing sales of Roaming Man Whiskey.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SUGARLANDS DISTILLING
s
The Kodak facility has four 8,500-gal fermenters and room to expand for an additional eight.
PHOTO BY AARON HAND
PHOTO BY JOYCE FASSL
This Miura boiler that Matrix helped Sugarlands choose features a small footprint, allowing room for expansion at the Kodak facility.
and develop attractive products. “Applying the standard ISA88, in conjunction with modernized technology, allowed Matrix to develop a control system that was capable of fi lling this requirement,” Rygalski says. “It only takes a short time to develop a new fl avor product in the system.”
Quality: With quality or consistency, the challenge is always how to integrate automatic operations with manual operations. “Even in a fully automated system, there is always manual activity that should be performed by operators the right way at the right time,” states Rygalski. “Adding specifi c fl avors at specifi c times, manually or automatically, are part of the PWCS procedures developed by Matrix to ensure consistency across the production system.”
Throughput and asset utilization: A control system should be able to take advantage of the resources available with minimal operator intervention. The way to achieve this is arbitration, explains Rygalski. “Arbitration is the control system’s capability to hold a specifi c operation while the required resource—RO water, for example—is being used by another unit. As soon as the resource is released, it is then required by the next system that is requesting it, and in the order of request. This functionality ensures a nonstop operation across the production systems.”
The system controls two process cells: blending and distillation. The blending process cell consists of one main blending tank that feeds in grain neutral spirits, whiskey, or liquid sucrose. RO water can then be introduced as desired. Once blending of the material is complete, the product can be transferred to one of four holding tanks. Here, cream liquor, as well as several other raw materials, can be introduced to three of the tanks, creating several di erent product variations. Once the product has reached its fi nal stage, it can then be transferred to the fi lling line and further packaging.
“You don’t take down the whole plant with one control panel going down,” says Rygalski. Sugarlands’ controls isolate each section, whether
it’s grain handling, fermentation, or blending. Control panels are dispersed throughout the facility. Since alcohol production can be very fl ammable, there are hazardous areas in the plant. Control panels had to be located outside of the hazardous areas, but still relative to the rooms they service. “From an electrical installation standpoint, that saved money by locating them around the facility vs. in one central location,” he adds.
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Three Rockwell Automation controllers run the blending process and a batch engine for all existing procedures or recipes. The distillation process cell consists of one cooker that receives grains, domestic water supply, and manually added in process materials. Temperature is controlled through the addition of steam and chilled water supply (CHWS). This product is known as the mash or the starting port for fermentation.
“The recipe editor is a tool for process engineers,” explains Bertorelli. “The process engineer should be able to arrange the recipes, create new products in a matter of minutes or hours, depending on how complex the new recipe is.”
Once the cooking product is complete, product is transferred to one of four fermenters for further processing. CHWS can also be added to the fermenter during this process. Upon completion of the fermenting process, product is transferred to the pot still. Temperatures of the pot still can be controlled from the automated addition of steam and chilled water. From here, the product is transferred to one of three gauging tanks used for proofi ng the product.
Increased operational ef ciency
In July 2021, Sugarlands Distilling hosted a pot still capping ceremony o ering a sneak peek of the company’s newest distillery, barrel house, and production center. “What this facility gave us was much larger, expanded production capacity and operational e ciency. With it, we were able to automate the batches, instead of batching everything by hand in 350-gal totes,” explains Eidam. “We were manually lifting bags of sugar, fl avor, cream, and spirits into totes, manually mixing, and agitating in small batches.”
In the past, Eidam says, it took fi ve to six distillers in two shifts to process 10 330gal batches. “We’re now able to do that same volume in about an hour and a half,” he states.
The biggest change in Kodak compared to the Gatlinburg facility is automation, especially in blending and some of the packaging areas that allow Sugarlands to minimize human error, resulting in better consistency and blending in much larger batch sizes. “Instead of having to test 10
separate batches a day, now we’re testing essentially one or two batches a day, so we can really focus on that quality,” Eidam explains.
Matrix’s work allows Sugarlands to monitor tank volumes, which Eidam says allows the distiller to reorder supplies as needed. Ingredients, such as grain and liquid sucrose, are now delivered in tanker quantities. “That helps improve e ciency,” he says. “Before, we had to bring in things in totes or super sacks.”
The new facility provides a much larger warehouse space, both for fi nished products and barrels. “It allows us to better organize and manage our inventory level of both raw materials and fi nished product,” says Eidam.
But the facility’s biggest impact has been increased operational e ciency, Eidam says. “OEE has improved tremendously,” he adds. “It takes a lot fewer people to achieve the same tasks now. Being able to collect data with the automation system, we’re able to go back and look over batches and confi rm quantities, and then pull data out of each batch.”
In addition, the project enables the Kodak facility to expand its bottling operations, providing more e cient, higher-speed packaging lines. “It allows us to change from di erent product types much more e ciently and gives us more accuracy and consistency in packaging quality.”
While Sugarlands is still in the process of getting all parts of the process up and running, there’s now a lot of new equipment to be maintained, such as pumps, loaders, valves, etc. “That’s something we’re still working on,” explains Eidam. “We’re implementing a program right now called MaintenX to basically log and track our equipment and various parts.”
Eidam says the project’s success was a result of excellent communication and having a good team in place. “This was a massive scale-up for us from a small operation to a much, much larger operation. There was just a lot of things that we didn’t know. And we were obviously relying on the expertise of people like Matrix and their team.”
Rygalski says COVID really reinvented how people work, but he emphasizes the value of face-to-face meetings. “I feel like things improved once we were able to get on site and meet the contractors and meet with Greg in person,” he says. “It goes back to what Greg said about having a good team.”
On any project, good and bad conversations must be had, states Rygalski. “Just talking with each other about that, working together, and working through those problems together, I think, was the biggest takeaway for me on the project.”
The project was designed for growth, according to Eidam. “On the distilling side, we’ve got this massive pot, the largest pot still in the country. We’ve left room to add a continuous column still with eight more fermenters and a cooker; room to add a second boiler, a second chiller, and a second cooling tower; and additional wall space in the electrical room,” he says. “Matrix did their job in really planning what we need for the future. With what we know now, and what we think we might want in the future, they’ve allowed us to have that capacity going forward.”
M.G. Newell
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