Fach­Pack 2019:

Sus­tain­abil­i­ty and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion are top­i­cal themes that also play an increas­ing­ly impor­tant role in the pack­ag­ing indus­try. Dur­ing Fach­Pack 2019, the lead­ing Euro­pean trade fair for pack­ag­ing, tech­nol­o­gy and pro­cess­ing, bay­ern design addressed the top­ic in an exhi­bi­tion host­ed joint­ly with Nürn­bergMesse. The close to 40 inno­v­a­tive exhibits from around the world empha­sized the process of sus­tain­able pack­ag­ing design which requires a vari­ety of approach­es. The inno­v­a­tive pack­ag­ing ideas and con­cepts were orig­i­nat­ed by design­ers from Aus­tralia, the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, Ger­many, Chile, and the Unit­ed States. They drew upon con­tem­po­rary trends and mate­ri­als to present future-ori­ent­ed and cre­ative designs relat­ed to the five themed areas: recy­cled pack­ag­ing, resource-pre­serv­ing mate­ri­als, reusable pack­ag­ing and sys­tems, envi­ron­men­tal­ly sound process­es, and design as added val­ue. At the con­cur­rent Forum Pack­Box, indus­try experts gave brief pre­sen­ta­tions on pre­mi­um envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly packaging.

The goals set by the EU for the recy­cling of pack­ag­ing call for new approach­es from man­u­fac­tur­ers and the recy­cling indus­try. By 2025, 55% of all munic­i­pal waste will have to be recy­cled. Thus, numer­ous cur­rent research projects focus pre­dom­i­nant­ly on upcy­cling plas­tic waste or reusing it for pack­ag­ing. What appli­ca­tions can use recy­clates and what solu­tions have com­pa­nies devel­oped to improve the recy­cling of packaging?

Design agency Arup and social enter­prise Goldfin­ger Fac­to­ry joined forces to devel­op a series of charm­ing organ­ic con­tain­ers for stor­ing food­stuffs includ­ing condi­ments, nuts, cere­als and oth­er dry goods, or desk sup­plies such as paper clips, pens, draw­ing and paint­ing uten­sils, and even toys. The lids on the repur­posed milk con­tain­ers are made of recy­cled wood.

Found­ed in 2013, Goldfin­ger Fac­to­ry is an award-win­ning social enter­prise for sus­tain­able design that offers bespoke con­cepts for fur­ni­ture and oper­ates a fur­ni­ture store. Goldfin­ger Fac­to­ry coop­er­ates with an acad­e­my where dis­ad­van­taged youth can learn to hone their arti­sanal and artis­tic skills and learn ways to process recy­cled mate­ri­als. All of Goldfin­ger Factory’s work is guid­ed by the firm’s pas­sion for the cir­cu­lar econ­o­my and ensur­ing an inclu­sive com­mu­ni­ty. Arup is an inde­pen­dent firm of design­ers, plan­ners, engi­neers, con­sul­tants, and tech­ni­cal spe­cial­ists active in all areas of mod­ern econ­o­my and society.

he pack­ag­ing of the PicoFin­ish^® Set stands out because of its unique com­bi­na­tion of mate­ri­als. In addi­tion to an inlay made of envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly card­board, Wiha also con­sid­ered the aspect of sus­tain­abil­i­ty for the trans­par­ent slip­case made of organ­i­cal­ly based PET, 30% of which is pro­duced from renew­able raw mate­ri­als includ­ing sug­ar­cane, and 70% of which is made from recy­cled PET. This means sig­nif­i­cant­ly few­er CO₂ emis­sions are gen­er­at­ed dur­ing production.

Wiha is one of the world’s lead­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers of hand tools for pro­fes­sion­al use in indus­tri­al and arti­sanal appli­ca­tions. Found­ed 80 years ago as a small fam­i­ly-run oper­a­tion, the com­pa­ny has evolved into a glob­al play­er, still owned and run by the Hahn fam­i­ly. Wiha’s mis­sion is to sim­pli­fy every­day tasks for users through its port­fo­lio of inno­v­a­tive hand tools. The tools are tai­lored to users’ require­ments to increase effi­cien­cy, reduce costs, and pre­serve health.

Descrip­tions of addi­tion­al exhibits can be found in our brochure on the Pre­mi­um Envi­ron­men­tal­ly Friend­ly Pack­ag­ing spe­cial exhi­bi­tion at Fach­Pack 2019.

In Ger­many, reusable pack­ag­ing is most com­mon­ly seen in the bev­er­age aisles of stores – the reuse of glass and PET bot­tles helps pre­serve resources. How­ev­er, the advan­tages of reusable pack­ag­ing also can be har­nessed in the (com­mer­cial) logis­tics sec­tor where it can be inte­grat­ed opti­mal­ly into a cir­cu­lar sys­tem con­cept and its qual­i­ty tends to pre­vail over that of dis­pos­able pack­ag­ing. In turn, this offers enhanced pro­tec­tion for the respec­tive prod­ucts. Also, reusable pack­ag­ing ensures that less pack­ag­ing waste is gen­er­at­ed dur­ing the life­cy­cle of indi­vid­ual prod­ucts. Reusable pack­ag­ing can be made from a vari­ety of materials.

kompackt61 of Nurem­berg devel­oped sus­tain­able insu­lat­ed pack­ag­ing made from jute for mail-order busi­ness­es to use as an eco­log­i­cal­ly respon­si­ble alter­na­tive to Sty­ro­foam. Jute has excel­lent shock-absorb­ing and insu­lat­ing prop­er­ties, ensur­ing the safe trans­porta­tion of sen­si­tive food­stuffs and oth­er goods. Also, jute is a nat­ur­al fiber which makes the entire prod­uct, includ­ing the wrap­ping, 100% com­postable. Con­sumers can dis­pose of it in their organ­ic-waste bins or oth­er­wise com­post the mate­r­i­al. kompackt61 was elect­ed the win­ner of the Busi­ness Plan Wet­tbe­werb Nord­bay­ern by BayStartUP.

The LastSwab team – Kåre Frand­sen, Isabel Aagaard, and Nico­las Aagaard – is com­mit­ted to cre­at­ing sus­tain­able alter­na­tives for items used dai­ly. Approx­i­mate­ly 18 months ago, the team decid­ed to tack­le the prob­lem of 550 bil­lion cot­ton swabs being pro­duced every year, a large per­cent­age of which pol­lute oceans and beach­es. The solu­tion is LastSwab: The case is made of bio-degrad­able plas­tic, the rod is made of nylon, and the tip is made of sil­i­cone. Because LastSwab can be cleaned eas­i­ly and thor­ough­ly, it can be used over and over again, thus sav­ing resources and pro­tect­ing the environment.

Descrip­tions of addi­tion­al exhibits can be found in our brochure on the Pre­mi­um Envi­ron­men­tal­ly Friend­ly Pack­ag­ing spe­cial exhi­bi­tion at Fach­Pack 2019.