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Plastic packaging serves several important functions in our modern lives, which are the primary reasons we rely on it:
Protection: protects vulnerable products from damage whilst in transit and from contamination or damage by moisture, humidity, gases, microorganisms, insects and light.
Preservation: preserves products for longer, which reduces waste by giving people more time to use or consume them before it is no longer suitable to do so.
Prevents waste: products kept together and spillages avoided.
Transportation: Allows transport over great distances, so that we have access to a wide variety of non-local produce that, in turn, encourages trade. It also saves space through stacking objects which make transporting more e&#;cient.
Displays information: important information about the product, such as nutritional content or allergy advice, is displayed on packaging.
Source: INCPEN. Why are products packaged the way they are?
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Plastic packaging is one of the most important contributors to protecting food from spoiling. Food waste has a significantly higher environmental impact, particularly in the form of its carbon footprint, than packaging waste.
Plastic packaging allows food to travel further distances, stay longer on the shelves, and ensures that large amounts of food do not go to waste. Because it takes considerably more resources to create the food itself, it often makes environmental sense to protect it for as long as possible so the resources invested in its growth are not invested in vain.
As well as helping to deliver food around our global economy, liquids, gels, powders, out-of-season fruit, and other specialist items are all safely protected by the material.
There are many types of plastic that have different functional properties such as being safe for food, flexible, transparent, opaque, and chemical and heat resistant. Plastics thus are the ideal packaging material for a variety of modern requirements. Without plastic packaging to serve all these needs, it becomes very difficult (and often impossible) to transport and utilise a wide range of products people rely on every day.
Source: Prepared by the Advisory Committee on Packaging. Packaging in Perspective.
For more information on food wastage and how you can prevent it, please see Fresher for Longer and Love Food, Hate Waste
Generally speaking, packaging is used where it makes economic, environmental, and safety sense to do so. Of course, not every product is optimally packaged, and there is important room for improvement where each of these three factors is concerned.
The amount of material used in packaging has been in decline for years: between to the average plastic packaging weight fell by 28%. This has happened as a consequence of improved technologies and design that enable a similar product or package to be produced with less amounts of material. There are regulations in place that require all packaging specifiers to reduce the amount of packaging used without compromising it&#;s functionality: The Packaging (Essential Requirements) Regulations (SI /).
Government Guidance Notes
Voluntary industry agreements also help to reduce the amount of material used in packaging, as well as reduce waste. The Courtauld Commitment to reduce packaging and waste is an example. Click the image below for more information (click the 'back' button to return to the page).
Plastic packaging is also an important component to keeping the lifecycle environmental impact of a product down. Due to the resource efficiency involved in the creation of plastic packaging, environmental costs are saved by using this material compared to replacing it with others. Environmental costs in this case include damage to the environment such as carbon and greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. However, it is also important to consider the plastic packaging items that are littered, which can end up in our rivers and seas. These damaging environmental consequences also require significant focus from governments around the world, to ensure these items do not end up in these environments, and that they are collected for recovery and recycling in every possible case.
Source: The excellence of the plastics supply chain in relaunching manufacturing in Italy and Europe: Executive summary
To be fit for purpose, packaging must protect and preserve. Plastic packaging performs this function particularly well and provides many other advantages for consumers, suppliers and society. Plastic is:
Resource efficient: plastic packaging saves packaging mass, energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Without it, we would use 2-3 times more resources.
Source: The impact of plastic packaging on life cycle energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in Europe: Executive Summary July , Bernd Brandt and Harald Pilz
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The BPF has created short e-learning courses that cover plastic packaging. If you're interested in learning more, you can access our CPD approved e-learning courses on sustainable plastic packaging here.
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Determining whether the performance of a novel biobased material is similar to that of traditional plastics.
Mechanical testing is used to assess the performance of plastic materials under specified types of stress. The overreaching goal is to determine the sample material&#;s characteristics and to identify possible shortcomings before bringing products to market or selling plastic components to manufacturers down the production chain.
Mechanical testing can be either fundamental or imitative. Fundamental testing is performed on a standardized plastic piece rather than the finished product. This allows for a direct comparison of different materials or batches of the same material, making fundamental testing crucial for R&D and Q&A efforts.
In imitative testing, a finished plastic product is placed under a specified type of mechanical stress. The aim is to closely simulate and evaluate the material&#;s performance in the kind of use it is designed for. Suitable samples for imitative testing include, among others, plastic pipes and containers. Evaluating mechanical durability in foreseeable use is also a key part of toy safety testing, as easily breakable plastic toys can cause choking and injury hazards.
In most cases, mechanical testing is performed with static loading over a relatively short period. If the long-term performance of the material or product needs to be studied, however, cyclic testing is recommended. In cyclic testing, loads are applied, removed, and reapplied repeatedly to determine how well the material withstands stress over time.
Mechanical testing standards are published by various international and national standardization bodies, including ISO, ASTM, and DIN. The standards that apply to plastics are mostly industry-specific &#; and practically countless, as polymer-based materials are so widely used. In some cases, different standards may even apply to similar products within a single industry. A good example of this is the automotive industry, where each manufacturer has its own testing requirements for plastic components.
When plastic raw materials and intermediate-stage products are tested instead of finished articles, the applicable standards are determined based on the type of material and the property under inspection.
The choice of properties and testing methods depends on the plastic material&#;s composition and intended use. For example, different mechanical tests are performed on packaging films and injection-molded plastic caps. Some of the most commonly tested properties are outlined below.
Tensile testing is used to determine how plastics perform under controlled tension. During the test, a standardized specimen is placed in a testing machine ( usually the universal tester) and pulled at a constant rate until it breaks or the maximum extension is reached. The displacement of the material is measured against the applied force to determine its tensile strength, yield point, tensile modulus, and other tensile properties.
Standardized tensile tests exist for various plastic materials, including films and injection molded plastics. Plastic films can be tested according to the ISO 527-3 standard, whereas injection and extrusion molded plastics are usually tested as per ISO 527-2.
Plastic&#;s flexural properties are determined by monitoring the force required to bend and break the material beyond repair. Flexural testing is similar to tensile testing but easier to perform, as it does not require a dog-bone-shaped test specimen.
Flexural tests are typically performed with a universal tester using the three-point bending method, but single cantilever and four-point bending methods are also available. Plastic&#;s flexural properties can be tested according to the ISO 178 standard.
During compression testing, a standardized specimen or a finished plastic product is subjected to squeezing by a compression load. The material&#;s displacement is calculated against the applied load to determine compressive properties like compression strength and modulus. ISO 604 standard applies to compression testing of rigid and semirigid plastics.
Impact testing measures the energy absorbed by a material during fracture and provides information on its toughness. In the case of solid plastics, testing is typically performed by hitting the specimen with a hammer (Charpy or Izod impact tests). For films, a typical impact test is done with the free-falling dart method.
The trouser tear test is most commonly used to measure the resistance of plastic films to tearing. During the test, a sample strip is cut from the middle and pulled in two directions while the energy needed to tear the sample is measured.
Plastic&#;s mechanical properties are extremely sensitive to temperature. The tests described above are most often performed at room temperature, but they can be modified to test the material&#;s performance in elevated or lowered temperatures. There are also analyses specifically meant to test the thermal characteristics of plastics.
The heat deflection temperature ( HDT) is the temperature at which a standard test specimen deflects 0,025 mm under a standardized load of either 0.455 MPa or 1.82 MPa. The higher this temperature is, the better the plastic is suited for use in elevated temperatures.
The principle of the Vicat softening point is similar to that of HDT, but the setup is slightly different. Vicat softening point is the temperature at which a 1 mm2 probe penetrates the sample material to a depth of 1 mm upon being loaded with either 10 N or 50 N. While HDT testing is only suited for rigid plastics, the Vicat test can be performed on plastic films by stacking them to a thickness of 3 mm.
Dynamic mechanical analysis ( DMA) is another method used to assess the thermal properties of plastics. DMA also provides information about the material's viscoelastic properties, transition temperatures, and much more. Due to the method&#;s complexity and the amount of work that goes into interpreting the results, other techniques are usually favored when doing simple mechanical evaluation and characterization.
At Measurlabs, we offer mechanical testing services by various international and national standards, including ISO, EN, ASTM, and DIN. Non-standardized testing options are also available upon request. If you wish to discuss your company&#;s testing needs with one of our experts, do not hesitate to contact us through the form below.
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