The Armadillo of Package Printing

Kari Virtanen, business development manager, films, Raflatac ( Fletcher, N.C.), expanded on this quality. "It is the nature of the polymer. It is water resistant. … Paper is not water resistant, and that is why it is not durable."

Water and grease resistance, though, is just one factor impacting the durability of synthetic material. "The second biggest factor is the technology used to process the resin," said Steve Nimz, president of Protect-All Print Media (Darien, Wis.). "There are four basic technologies being used around the world to manufacture synthetic papers. These include mono and multi-layer blown extrusion and mono and multi-layer cast extrusion. From here, there are a variety of additional processes such as bi-axial orientation, calendering, extraction, cross lamination and an assortment of post-extrusion coatings." The many processing methods are one of the reasons for such a variety of synthetic material throughout the industry.