Advantages and disadvantages of the application of PLA in China's packaging industry

 The Institute of Biodegradable Materials reported that the packaging industry has now become a major source of "white pollution", especially the waste accumulated throughout the year in the express delivery industry has caused a great burden on the planet. Therefore, the packaging industry has vigorously advocated the 3R1D principles of packaging Reduction, Reuse, Recycle, and Degradable in recent years, and encourages the development of degradable packaging materials.

Background:

    The "Opinions on Further Strengthening the Control of Plastic Pollution" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission on January 19, 2020 clearly stated that by the end of 2022, the use of postal express outlets in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and other provinces and cities shall be prohibited in advance. Degradable plastic packaging bags, disposable plastic woven bags, etc., reduce the use of non-degradable plastic tape. By the end of 2025, non-degradable plastic packaging bags, plastic tapes, disposable plastic woven bags, etc. will be banned at postal express outlets nationwide.

    Compared with the traditional packaging material PE and PP, PLA (polylactic acid) has high transparency, good processability, and good printability. It has advantages when used as packaging materials. It can be made into films, foam materials and containers, such as flexible packaging bags and plastics. Bottles, cushioning materials, disposable tableware, etc.

PLA film

    PLA film mainly includes high transparent film, heat shrinkable film, pellet blend blown film bag and PLA-based composite film.

    PLA film can replace traditional film materials as a new packaging material. For example, Wal-Mart supermarket requires the use of fully degradable PLA film bags to replace traditional non-degradable PE bags. Japanese electronic products have also begun to use PLA nano-composite film packaging.

  PLA container

    Due to the degradability of PLA, PLA containers are mostly used in short-term shelf food packaging.

    The transparency and oxygen barrier of PLA bottles are better than PE bottles. NatureWorks uses PLA bottles to package organic juice drinks, which can guarantee a 60-day shelf life. The Danish Faerch Plastics Company uses PLA to package low-temperature pasta, meat, salads and other fresh foods, which can achieve a long shelf life. The European market has launched PLA-made yogurt cups and beverage packaging bottles, which can meet EU standards for food containers.

    The highly transparent and heat-resistant PLA water bottles and PLA baby bottles developed by Hangzhou Xusheng Technology Co., Ltd. can meet the application conditions that are both transparent and heat-resistant (water bottles and baby bottles require heat-resistant temperature ≥100°C). The domestic market also coats PLA on paper to make coated paper cups, which are used in various water- and oil-proof food packaging.

PLA foam material

    PLA foaming material is also biodegradable and can be used to produce disposable catering utensils (such as fast food boxes, instant noodle bowls, etc.) and cushion packaging without white pollution. For example, the "Graft" series of disposable tableware is designed with PLA foam material to have a realistic shape of fruits and vegetables, which is environmentally friendly and beautiful.

      Compared with traditional PE and PP materials, PLA has a higher melting point (about 180°C) and better processability. The hardness and mechanical properties of PLA are similar to those of traditional resins, and it has good transparency and excellent gloss. It is especially suitable for packaging materials.

Disadvantages:

     However, compared with high-barrier nylon, polyvinylidene chloride, etc., PLA has poor oxygen and water vapor barrier properties, insufficient protection for oily foods, and PLA has poor toughness, low heat distortion temperature, and poor impact resistance. It is often unable to meet the requirements of circulation in harsh environments. In addition, the degradation cycle of PLA is not well controlled. Compared with traditional resins, the price is slightly higher (about 30,000 yuan/ton). At this stage, it is not advantageous for packaging.

     Although PLA has shortcomings such as relatively brittle texture, poor heat resistance, and poor barrier properties, these shortcomings can be corrected by modification such as copolymerization, blending, and plasticization. In recent years, scholars at home and abroad have been actively studying the polymerization process and modification technology of PLA, and have developed a variety of green packaging materials using PLA as raw materials.

Improve Your Life by Reusing Packaging Boxes

With the growing environmental awareness, both packaging suppliers and brand companies are paying more attention eco-friendly packaging boxes. Manufacturers and consumers as well are called for following the three R’s, that is, to reduce, reuse, and recycle the packaging boxes. It’s easy to understand ‘reduce’ and ’recycle’. But ‘reuse’ is the one with the greatest possibility.  Before throwing them in the recycle bin you can actually do much more than recycling. Especially if it’s a cardboard box, because of some specific characteristics of cardboard, you can have more room to reuse them in creative ways. Companies tend to design their packaging boxes in such a way that would encourage consumers to reuse after unboxing. Consumers are living a green life and contributing to the cause of “Go green” by simply reusing them. 

Reuse Plastic Gift Boxes

We all know that plastics take long to decompose in the natural environments. However, in many cases, we’ll have to choose plastic gift boxes as the perfect packaging solutions.

Let’s Plant some flowers

If you love gardening, growing new flowers and green plants is your hobby. And you’d probably have a lot of potted plants at your home and office area. You can use the used plastic boxes to flowers or grass over your desk top. By doing so, you’re improving your micro ecosystem while contributing to protecting the earth from global warming. These little pots of plastic gift boxes are going to last long.  So don’t haste to recycle them. For whatever size you got, fill them with soil, sow some seeds,  water them and wait for them to bloom. You can paint or wrap these boxes in any color or pattern. Places these small cute pots on your desks, in your bedroom or anywhere you want.

Reuse Cardboard Boxes

In this e-commerce era, you never lack cardboard boxes. Do you know you can use these shipping boxes for storage purposes and more more. Corrugated cardboard boxes withstand certain load so you can use them for storing. The cardboard shipping boxes are best for organizing files and books. Use them as they are or you can DIY modify them, up to your choice. You can place any book or folder in them to keep organized and dust free. You can also choose any rectangular brown kraft boxes…

You can save money and our planet by reusing cardboard cups, for example, to make pencil containers. You can even personalize them by applying attractive wrap papers or anything you like. All you need is your imagination. Turn those otherwise useless cardboard cups into a useful pen container and appealing decoration to your office desk at the same time. Most importantly, such a DIY art work can make you pleasant all day at the sight of it.

If you have a preschool child, then it’s a nice idea to make a wall clock with cardboard and something like a milk spoon as the clock hands. Paste it on the wall and teach your kid to read the time and it’s a kid’s room decoration as well. Kids never stop asking for new games and toys and you can find limitless solutions from used boxes. For example, you can DIY make a pinball game out of the used cardboard gift boxes to surprise your kids. So think again before throwing your packaging boxes, collect all of them and try to rack your brain to make an innovative piece of art. Also, you can do it together with your kids. It can provide you a good brain exercise as well as a happy parent-child time.

Cut the cardboard in the shape mentioned image. Place disposable cups on its side to give a perfect look. Place damaged CDs, and here you go.  You can make any toys and gadgets from these eco-friendly boxes like makers, solar oven, and much more.

You all know about eco-friendly gift boxes and how you can protect the global warming by using it. But by following DIY ideas mentioned above will also make you reduce the pollution.

How To Make Winning Custom Packaging Boxes

Nowadays, custom packaging are getting increasingly popular as manufacturers face tough market competition! Custom packaging solutions boost your products’ competitiveness and make certain things easier. If you are looking for customized packaging boxes for your goods, there are a few things you must consider before finalizing any deal. 

This article is going to address what important factors you must consider while seeking for the best possible custom boxes. 

Marketing Strategy 

Set tone for your packaging and put it in the context of your company’s entire product and marketing strategies. In this stage, you’ll do the market research to determine your market segmentations and learn your target consumers and potential competitors before finalizing the product design! And consider your custom packaging boxes as an integral part of the product design! Packaging is by no means an icing-on-the-cake accessory. Instead, it’s an indispensable and difference-making part of the product! So don’t slight it over until the product design is done. 

Unique Shapes 

To make a unique name for your company in the market in a short time, you should think of some out of the box strategies to help you stand out. Using custom boxes of unique & innovative shapes is one of the best and useful ideas. Say no to the old rectangle, square and round shapes of boxes. Brainstorm good ideas, ask your dealers to show you the latest shapes and/or mingle with your consumers to have some insight etc. You can have sleeves in your custom product packaging, or you can go for a transparent front. You may consider using custom plastic packaging boxes for some tricky shapes. Or you can search some existing offers in the market, e.g. this T-shirt shaped customizable watch box with hanger. It’s worth your efforts to figure out a novel shape that would make your products easily recognizable for the customers. 

Choose Material 

Material is another important thing to address. Choice of material hinges on which principle properties you would expect from the boxes. But generally, durability is a vital and common factor to consider for almost all occasions. For the safety of the goods, the material used for manufacturing should be strong and durable enough to keep the thing protected for longer periods. In present circumstances, Kraft, paperboard and plastic materials are being used the most as all of them are strong enough to withstand most damaging situations. Though the degree of durability differs among them and it’s necessary to further select up to your specific needs.

Other factors to consider include transparency, waterproofness, printing friendliness and chemical resistance, etc. These all need to be attended based on the specific requirements for the packaging. 

Minor Customized Options 

Today is era of personalization! Tough competition makes customization and personalization necessary, and the development of technology makes it affordably possible! 

Colors & Printing. People are always attracted to colorful displays. Make sure you get the solutions that can be customized according to your needs and liking. You would be able to select attractive designs, perfect-looking themes, captivating illustrations, and the required artwork. You can even select the color combination of your custom packaging boxes as per the nature of the business. Always keep in mind that the customers would always welcome such innovative designs and themes, and you might be able to generate more sales for your business. 

Inserts & inner designs. As much accent is given to the outside of packaging boxes, it does not mean that inserts and inner designs of the boxes could be overlooked. Actually, inner designs can be as important when it comes to unboxing experience! Few people would speak ill of iPhone series’ packaging boxes, which can be seen as a textbook case of inserts and inner design of packaging boxes! They are so clean and well-organized, simple but exquisite! You can sense that every corner of the inserts are precisely calculated and excellently manufactured! 

Finishing. The finishing of the boxes also plays a crucial role. Modern finishing techniques like embossing, UV coating and foil stamping would help you to improve the image of your brand, and the customers would distinguish your things easily in the stream of market competitors. 

Being Affordable 

Despite all the charm of packaging design, a prime factor that mustn’t be left over is the cost. When the packaging boxes take up too much cost and make the products accordingly overpriced, consumers’ interest in the products may be compromised or the dealers’ profit margins may suffer as a result. Ultimately, the clients will not be happy, and that will make the packaging a failure. So the manufacturers should strike a balance between cost and design. Besides, you can order custom packaging boxes wholesale at large quantities to cut some cost!

(Source: https://www.vingle.net/posts/3149965)

Four Major Factors on Plastic Injection Molding Quality

Top Custom Plastic Injection Molding Company: PacZone

It's a good idea to choose an injection molding company that’s fast, flexible and customer-driven, especially if you want to order large quantities and fast turnaround. Choose the company that has state-of-the-art plastic injection molding facilities and machines. See if they have full scale thermoplastic and thermoset capabilities and experiences! PacZone is one of such leading plastic injection molding companies from China! 

Communicate your initial concept with us, and leave everything else from initial prototype through mold design, production to finishing and delivery. PacZone is equipped with a trained staff of experienced engineers, designers and toolmakers who will work with clients from designing and building the actual custom mold to, when necessary, the injection and packaging of the final plastic parts. With the use of sophisticated computer aided design and technology and the latest equipment, we can provide clients with a technically superior mold and assure every product's success, as we’ve always been delivering in the past decades!

Email us at [email protected]

WhatsApp: +86-13691993034

Website:  paczoneboxes.com

Four Major Factors on Plastic Injection Molding Quality

Custom plastic parts by injection molding are not all made equally good! There are many quality pitfalls in the process. A company must have excellent quality management practice and systems to guarantee consistently excellent product quality! 

Here listed are four essential factors that affect the quality of plastic injection molding:

1. Plastic Material

The complexity of plastic material properties determines the complexity of the injection molding process. And the properties of plastic materials may vary greatly with different varieties, brands, manufacturers, and even batches. Different properties, in turn, can lead to completely different molding results.

2. Injected Plastic Temperature

The plastic melt flows into the cooled cavity, and loses some heat due to conduction. At the same time, heat is generated as a result from the shearing, which may or may not produce more heat than what the conduction dissipates, depending on the molding conditions. The viscosity of the melt decreases with increasing temperature. In this way, the higher the injection temperature, the lower the viscosity of the melt and the lower the filling pressure required. Also, the injection temperature is limited by both thermal degradation and decomposition temperatures.

3. Mold Temperature

The lower the mold temperature, the faster the loss of heat due to conduction, the lower the melt temperature, and hence the poorer the flow-ability. This is especially true when using lower injection rates.

4. Injection Time

The impact of injection time on the molding process lies in three areas:

(1) Reducing injection time will increase the shear strain rate. The injection pressure to fill should be increased accordingly.

(2) As reducing injection time will increase the shear strain rate, the viscosity of the melt decreases due to the shear thinning properties. The injection pressure required to fill the cavity will also decrease.

(3) Reducing injection time will increase the shear strain rate. The greater the shear heating is, the less will be the heat loss from conduction. Thus, the melt temperature increases, and the viscosity will lowers. The desired injection pressure to fill the cavity should also be reduced.

The combined effect of the above three conditions results in a "U" shape curve of the injection pressure required to fill the cavity. In other words, there exists an injection time when the injection pressure required is minimal.

What to Factor in When Designing Candy Packaging?

Steady growth of the candy market has led to the boom of candy packaging design. However, despite the huge market, the competition is also tough. Candy manufacturers and consumers as well pay more and more attention to packaging appeal of candies. Then what factors shall we consider when designing candy packaging?

1. Adequate Protection and Containment

The basic protective function of packaging is related to the quality of the candy, and of utmost importance. There are many types of candies and confections, the main ingredients of which are generally granulated sugar, caramel, milk powder, cream, etc. Some may also be added with flavor, edible gum or starch. Thus proper packaging is needed for the preservation of candies. 

Due to the distinctive composition of the candies, the requirements for packaging materials selection greatly differs with candy types. Candies with low water content tend to absorb moisture and become sticky, while those with high water content are easy to shrink and grow molds and mildews. Stuffs like starch and butter, etc. are prone to oxidation and deterioration when exposed to air. Therefore, air-proof and moisture-proof function should be taken into account in candy packaging design and material selection.

2. Easy to Use

Whether the packaging is convenient to use also directly impacts on the confections experience. For example, sealing of the jelly cups should be secure enough to prevent breaking and consequent overflow of juice during the storage and transportation. But if the seal too hard to lift open, then it would backfire and have a negative impact on the sales. Candy packaging should always strike a subtle balance between fastness and convenience.

3. Food Safety Issues

Packaging has direct contact with candies. If there’s any toxic substance it will do harm to consumers’ health. Only food-grade materials can be used. When plastic packaging is involved, make sure it’s BPA free. Besides, candy packaging always features gorgeous printing. However, the toxic substances contained in inks and solvents will transfer.

4. Unique Shapes & Design

Branding & advertising have also become a feature of candy packaging. As a kind of snack food, candies are widely used in banquets, weddings, holiday gifts and other occasions. But wherever they are consumed, candy consumers are increasingly attracted by the packaging and appearance. The sweet and lovely packaging on the market attracts consumers' appetite and desire to buy. Make sure to create designs that distinguish the brands from competitors and appeal target consumer groups. 

5. Go Green 

Environmental awareness has been greatly aroused among the general public compared to decades ago. Thus make sure that your candy & chocolate packaging boxes designs have environmental care in perspective. Use eco-friendly materials and encourage consumers to reuse and recycle the packaging materials, etc.