Current packaging manufacturing and recycling process are at
an all-time high in eco friendliness. Industrial designers have moral responsibilities
to minimise the impact of packaging on the environment and create innovative
ways to package products in a way which uses less material to perform the same
function if not outperform current functions. Through the use of such videos as
How it’s made: Packaging and Giving Packaging a New Life industrial designers are able to gain an
insight into the process involved in producing and recycling packaging and thus
design to maximise efficiency and minimise environmental impact.
The mini-series How it’s
made: Packaging looks at the various production methods of packaging and
enables the viewer to gain a full insight into the entire production process
from raw material to finished product. Specifically looking at the tetrapak
episode, the video explains how this innovative pack allows products to remain unrefrigerated
for up to one year; while at the same time the pack is 100 percent recyclable. The lamination process to form the outer shell
of the pack incorporates three different materials; plastic, paper and foil. While
these three distinctly different materials are used they are able to be
separated and recycled with no waste entering landfill which is a great triumph
in the packaging industry.
At the other end of the packaging lifecycle, Giving Packaging New Life explains in
detail how packaging at its end of life is recycled to for new almost virgin
material which is used to make more packaging. Everything from paper to
plastics and metals are recycled and reproduced which minimises the energy
consumption of that of creating new packaging from scratch. The episodes of
this series focus on the recycling process in Germany and are a prime example
of the recycling with the worlds first automatic sorting plant in Anderten
which reduces the cost of convetional sorting methods by as much as 50 percent.
Sorting is a critical process in recycling packaging as it allows different materials
and material types to be identified and grouped in order to return them to pure
granular form. This example from Germany expresses the innovation in technology
and design showing that packaging has a promising ecofriendly future.
Both video series allow designers and the general public to
gain knowledge into the packaging industry and allow them to improve their
designs and behaviours to assist in the process of creating new and recycled
packaging. Through implementing the use of the latest technologies, industry is
able to work more efficiently, gathering larger quantities of used packaging,
reprocessing used packaging and reproducing packaging with higher quantities of
recycled materials.
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