One million environmentally friendly plastic packaging cases
Jan Erik Kaarø
A new type of plastic packaging that can be reused and recycled is more environmentally friendly than cardboard or isopore packaging.
Nils Kristian Nakstad.
That, at least, is what is claimed by Nils Kristian Nakstad, Head of section at SINTEF Refrigeration Engineering and Rune Thoralfsson, manager of Norsk Hydro Eco Packaging.
The plastic has been developed by Hydro in collaboration with SINTEF Refrigeration Engineering, and it is now being manufactured by Norsk Hydro at Notodden. The advantage of the "ThermoBox" is that after it has been used, it can be folded flat, returned, washed and used again. Each box can normally be used 30 to 50 times, depending on the transportation system used. Old boxes are sent to the Notodden factory, where they are granulated and recycled into other plastic products.
Positive "environmental accounts"
Even though polyethylene is a pure oil product, Nakstad and Thoralfsson believe that the "environmental account" for the plastic box is better than that of other types of packaging, at any rate as long as the system for collection and return of the cases functions properly.It has been calculated that around 50 million tons of used packaging are burnt or put into landfills in Europe every year. This has led to demands for recycling and environmental taxes on waste. The EU has promulgated an aim of recycling or reusing 60% of all packaging by the end of the century.
Almost one million ThermoBoxes are already in use, but hardly a single one has been sold in Norway. Their biggest market is Germany, where Hydro has signed a cooperative agreement with the Unilever Group of companies to market the system by the name of MTP (Mehrweg Transportbehälter Pool).
Seven years work
One factor that has held back the widespread adoption of the case in Norway is that slaugherhouses and packaging plants lie along the length of the coast."This means that the cost of transport is high. Another factor is that there already are a large number of manufacturers of isopore packaging located close to their customers", points out Nils Kristian Nakstad.
The SINTEF scientist has been with the ThermoBox project since it started in 1987. The idea was originally to produce a special welded box for sending salmon to the USA by air freight. After an endless series of experiments and tests of strength and insulating ability at SINTEF, the prototype was radically modified and gradually gained a toehold in the market. However, when the Americans introduced their punitive rate of duty on Norwegian salmon, the market disappeared overnight. This was when the foldable variant was introduced. The current design was virtually completely developed in 1991. Hydro has taken out several patents as a result of this project, including the closure mechanism, corner reinforcements and the drainage system in the bottom of the cases. The actual technical system for production of the plastic packaging cases was developed by Hydro in collaboration with the German company Krupp Kautex Maschinegebau GmbH.