The flexible packaging industry is under increasing pressure from consumer groups to reduce its environmental impact. This background noise from the market is being picked up by Brand owners who are promising to transform their entire flexible packaging portfolio in line with the 4Rs of sustainability.

In addition, new legislation in Europe has started to introduce a Plastic Tax to encourage converters to increase the amount of recycled resins used in flexible packaging production. Finally, converters are also looking for more sustainable and ethical ways to print packaging with less waste and lower CO2 emissions. This paper aims to demonstrate that advances in Inkjet Digital printing, as a Circular Economy Enabler, can significantly lower the environmental impact of printing flexible packaging compared to traditional analogue printing processes.

1 SUSTAINABILITY TRENDS AND DRIVERS IN FLEXIBLE PACKAGING PRODUCTION

In today’s ultra-competitive commercial environment, the average run length for flexible packaging is decreasing. Brand owners are demanding shorter makeready times with a higher degree of product diversification (more SKUs) and versioning to satisfy their needs for promotional campaigns, seasonal products and more relevant content. That means lower volume quantities of printed films but ordered more frequently: what it is generally called Short Runs. They also expect packaging converters to have a printing operation with the flexibility to rapidly produce samples to test the market, reduce their inventories with just-in-time delivery and the agility to satisfy urgent jobs immediately. Finally, consumer attitudes and new legislation towards a more ethical and sustainable use of flexible packaging are driving the industry to pursue more environmentally friendly ways to produce and print packaging.

2 INKJET DIGITAL PRINTING INNOVATIONS FOR FLEXIBLE PACKAGING

Traditional analogue printing processes (Flexo, Gravure) have been the dominant methods for flexible packaging regardless job run length. These printing processes require high energy consumption during setup and printing, and produce a large amount of waste (i.e. substrate waste, solvents, disposable tooling, plates & cylinders, VOC incineration, overproduction, obsolete packaging for disposal, etc). These are only cost effective for Long printing runs. Today, however, the average print run length in the industry is rapidly decreasing with a proliferation of SKUs and increased packaging customisation. Analogue printing methods are, therefore, struggling to meet the sustainability drivers for brand owners and consumers that demand cleaner, more environmentally friendly ways to print flexible packaging with minimum material waste and less energy consumption. The solution is a compact and flexible inkjet digital printing press that can fulfil the new sustainability requirements for short to medium production runs using food-safe water-based inks.

3 DIGITALLY PRINTED BARRIER PAPER AS A REPLACEMENT OF PLASTIC LAMINATE STRUCTURES

One of the fastest growing trends in Flexible Packaging is the reduction of plastic material used in packaging. Multitude of consumer studies in Europe have shown that consumers perceive paper as a more environmentally friendly and easy-to-recycle substrate. Replacement of multi-layer laminated structures for single layer paper with barrier coatings (Min 80% fibre content). Consumers and brand owners in Europe also appear to have a preference for machine-glazed uncoated paper packaging that provides a natural feel and look which is instantly recognised as recyclable packaging to be disposed in the appropriate recycling bin. This would, in turn, help to largely increase the current recycling volumes in a circular economy. The introduction of a small, compact, low energy consumption, easy to use inkjet digital printing press would facilitate adoption of localised printed barrier paper. No entry barriers for digital printing will enable small star-up companies, paper distributors and converters print smaller quantities of paper with a much lower environmental impact helping to drastically reduce even further CO2 emissions during transportation, cutting down the risk of overproduction/obsolete packaging every year with a print-on-demand model.

4 FUTURE READINESS: PREPARE YOUR COMPANY WITH THE RIGHT PRINTING TECHNOLOGY CONFIGURATION

Significant efforts are currently being made to enable printing process interchangeability (digital and analogue) to produce indistinguishable packaging print quality on the shelf. Brand owners will use different packaging formats with slightly different designs for the same product range but aimed at different consumer segments. These different packaging formats will be ordered differently with changing run length patterns and order frequency, which means that they should be printed cost-efficiently and timely using different printing technologies. Brands should not be concerned as to what printing technology their different packaging formats are printed with, providing that brand colour fidelity is achieved.

There is a balance to be reached given the competing interests between what brand owners are demanding, existing printing technologies and company profitability. Futureproof your company against uncertain and volatile market conditions, sudden peaks of demand, changes in legislation and new emerging trends by having the right printing technology configuration in your production shopfloor. An agile and flexible Inkjet Digital press for cost-effective production of short runs, working alongside with your existing analogue presses (Gravure, Flexo or Offset) for an increased capacity and higher utilisation rate in Medium and long runs.