PHILADELPHIA—Specialty materials company Rohm and Haas announced that the recent “Innovation Takes Root” conference hosted by NatureWorks LLC., provided an ideal forum to explore innovative future applications for sustainable, corn-derived polylactic acid (PLA) and its alloys.
NEW YORK, N.Y.—ABI will conduct a workshop on creating business opportunities through green initiatives while avoiding such pitfalls as green washing and commodification at at the PIRA 2009 Sustainability in Packaging Conference, which will be held March 2-4 in Orlando, Fla.
[...] in attendance were Richard Schloesser, President and COO of Toray Plastics (America), Inc., Mitch Adamek, Senior Vice President and Chief Procurement Officer, PepsiCo, and Paul Zmigrosky, Group Vice President, Frito-Lay North America Strategic Sourcing, World Wide Ingredients & Commodities, PepsiCo. Toray Industries offers the global community a variety of environment-friendly technologies, including reverse-osmosis membranes, which are being used to create 14 million tons of clean water everyday for 60 million people, and carbon fiber composite materials used for building aircraft that is 20 percent lighter than conventional aircraft and will use less fuel and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“The conference agenda addresses the myriad of issues and approaches to help participants understand and install sustainable procedures in difficult economic times,” said Harvey Levenson, head of Cal Poly's Graphic Communication Department. Because of the need to assist the graphic communication industry to ‘reinvent’ itself and grow in light of economic cutbacks, the conference will focus on ‘Being Lean, Green and Profitable in a Shrinking Economy.’
The Tag and Label Manufacturer’s Institute (TLMI) held its annual meeting last month in the picturesque setting of The Breakers in Palm Beach, Fla. The annual meeting is always a highlight affair, mixing excellent presentations with a tabletop reception, business meetings, and a formal banquet. TLMI Chairman John Hickey of Smyth -Companies and Meeting Chair Dan O’Connell of UPM -Raflatac worked the presentations around the theme, -“Celebrating Our Legacy and Meeting the Challenges of Our Future.” Sustainability and the environment were the focus of several of the sessions including, “A Contract With Our Future” by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and “Forever Green” by
It seems as though labels are everywhere. In an office, many items like White Out, hand lotion, and water bottles all have labels adorning the exterior of the package. At restaurants, one can’t help but notice the labels. They appear on bottles of almost every condiment: ketchup, mustard, Tabasco sauce, soy sauce, and even some salt and pepper shakers. Where one can see a decent amount of labels is at the bar or at a social gathering. It is truly amazing what the “turnaround” time is on beverage labels. It’s not that long after seeing someone twist off a bottle cap that you can
Last month, the staff at packagePRINTING packed its bags and flew to Chicago for Labelexpo -Americas. This was my second time attending this show. My first go at it was two years ago. I had just started with packagePRINTING and had only gotten a taste of the package-printing industry for about two months, before I stepped on the showroom floor for the first time. Needless to say, I was completely overwhelmed and felt as if I had stepped into another world. I knew very little about tradeshows and knew even less about the printing presses and equipment I would see on the floor. And,
Sustainability could be the topic of the decade, and hopefully, for years to come. There’s no doubt that it is a hot topic in the news today, and there’s a lot riding on the eventual outcome of long-term, worldwide sustainability efforts. One of the problems with sustainability is that it’s an extremely complex technical issue. As an example, both National Geographic in its October 2007 issue and Time in its April 7, 2008 issue, did thorough reviews of the environmental equations relating to biofuel production and use. It was clear from both of these reviews that the net environmental impact from biofuels does not
Film materials have enjoyed increased usage in the packaging arena for many years now, and this trend will no doubt continue. There are, however, significant, broad-based considerations that will impact the nature and degree of its overall growth in the years ahead. A couple of these considerations you have undoubtedly heard of (if you haven’t, you probably couldn’t count yourself among the living). One is the general upward trend in oil costs, also known as skyrocketing oil prices. The other is sustainability, which is being driven by a growing consensus that we are simply consuming the earth’s resources too rapidly and leaving behind
While sustainability is currently top-of-mind for all Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies, shelf impact remains a high priority. With so much of a product’s brand integrity tied to package design, any redesign—big or small—is an important decision.
