Shrink Wrap Food - Help The Environment

According to an Industry Press Release titled "Shrink Wrapping Cucumbers Better for the Environment Says Study", more education is needed to help consumers and businesses identify what is and what is not helpful to our environment.

Many think that simply reducing packaging and or omitting packaging (such as shrink wrap) wherever possible will be the most environmentally friendly option. With the minimalist and absent packaging theory, consumers easily assume absent food packaging of produce, such as a naked cucumber is more eco friendly than a shrink wrapped cucumber. However in reality the opposite is true.

Evidence of how food packaging helps the environment is evident in the study performed by leading environmental packaging industry experts and consultants, Laurel Miller and Stephen Aldridge, in their book titled "Why Shrink Wrap A Cucumber? The Complete Guide to Environmental Packaging" (Lawrence King, 2012)". The authors Miller and Aldridge provide valuable insights on environmental packaging materials and processes.




Why Shrink Wrap A Cucumber? The Complete Guide To Environmental Packaging

Why Shrink Wrap a Cucumber? The complete guide to environmental packaging. The book includes a study on the shrink wrapping of a cucumber which revealed how the wrapping of cucumbers successfully extended shelf life freshness. In it, authors Miller and Aldridge explain that unwrapped cucumbers deteriorate much quicker than shrink wrapped cucumbers and pointing that an unwrapped naked cucumber loses 3.5 percent weight after only three days sitting out while a shrink wrapped cucumber only loses 1.5 percent weight after two weeks sitting out in the same conditions.

A Canadian research report titled "Food Waste in Canada" by Value Chain Management Centre" shares data that is a real eye opener about waste sources, most notably in the following summary:

• “Food waste creates methane gas which is 25 times more damaging to the environment than C0² (carbon dioxide) (WRAP, 2010a;NOAA, 2008)
• More greenhouse gases created from wasted food by households than by plastic packaging
• Plastic packaging actually benefits us by reducing food waste and protecting food in transportation and handling
• The downside of plastic packaging is primarily not the material but lack of coordination at municipal level resulting in thousands of tonnes gone to landfill needlessly, increasing its carbon footprint unnecessarily”

The PR references the Canadian Packaging Solutions Blog (http://solutions.cpsupplyline.com) by the Packaging Specialists Crawford Provincial and a specific post titled "Help End Food Waste with Food Packaging" authored by Packaging Industry Expert; Mr. Andy Craig. The post explains the huge issue of food waste in Canada, USA and the world, and how food packaging can and does help the environment by reducing wasted food.

About waste and environment impact, Andy Craig says for Canadians: “About 20 per cent of Canada’s methane emissions (a greenhouse gas that traps more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide) come from landfills and the majority of these off-gases come from the fruit and vegetable waste that we create.” For Americans, Andy Craig illustrated it this way saying: “In the US alone, the amount of water loss from food waste is like leaving the tap running and pouring 40 trillion litres of water down the drain.”

Mr. Craig goes on to debunk common misconceptions about food packaging when he writes "88 percent of people believe that food packaging is a bigger problem than food waste itself, but when we consider the C0² emission rates, we see that Packaging is responsible for 11 percent and Food Waste is responsible for 89 percent.” He continues on this note stating: “Reality is much different than perception. Food waste is a massive problem in North America. Food Packaging is the safety net for food that helps to protect, cushion, save and extend the life cycle of that product, which in turn helps to reduce waste.”




Shrink Wrap Equipment

As food packaging is for commercial application with large volume output to market, such application will normally leverage shrink wrap equipment to enable the shrink wrapping of cucumbers and other food in an time efficient and cost efficient (optimized to wrap consistently, securely and to use less shrink wrap film).

There are a wide array of shrink equipment to consider for fresh produce and processed foods.

Crawford Provincial Packaging Equipment Division(www.cppackagingequipment.com) provides Shrink Wrap Machines and shrink tunnels, such as sleeve wrappers, l bar sealers, form fill and seal shrink equipment and more. Shrink Wrap Machinery - L Bar Sealer, Heat Shrink Tunnel, Form Fill Seal Shrink Equipment. View equipment


  For those in the market for a shrink wrap machine, consulting experts helps ensure the best fit solution system is sourced. The benefits of getting the right equipment for an application include output speed, efficiency, cost savings (packaging materials, packaging process, labour savings) and greater containment (consistency and more secure). A Press release that includes a testimony that exemplifies the described benefits, check out this PR: New Shanklin Shrink Wrap Machine Install Providing Immediate ROI