Avery Dennison began the digital traffic sign revolution in 2014 with our introduction of the TrafficJet Print System. Quickly becoming one of the best-selling printers for specification compliant traffic signs with warranties exceeding industry standards, TrafficJet is in regular use in nearly 500 locations across 50 countries. This printer has been instrumental in the elimination of more than 1.5 million gallons of wastewater worldwide. “Our newest printer, TrafficJet Pro, truly challenges the need for toxic screen printing” says Aaron Means, senior product manager. “This affordable printer featuring UV LED instant cure and True Traffic Color spot inks, delivers print speeds comparable to high-volume screen printing, while eliminating the complexity and multiple waste streams associated with screen printing. In addition, the print production process can be housed in an area less than one-third required by screen printing, conserving valuable space and associated costs. For government agencies, longer-life TrafficJet Pro signs reduce their replacement cycles and maintenance costs, lessening the impact on the environment.

Dorotea Bajic and Laura Rendell-Dean who are both students in the School of Graphic Communications Management (GCM) program, won the competition and earned $5,500 for their design.

PPA is an American-based organization that aims to promote the advantages of paperboard packaging and encourages its use in packaging design and development. 

In 2004, PPA began sponsoring the Student Design Challenge for university students across North America. Their goal has been to encourage innovation in paperboard packaging, which is the kind of thick foldable paper used frequently in food packaging. 

This year’s challenge asked students to design an educational toolkit that would be used as a part of their Trees into Cartons, Cartons into Trees (TICCIT) program, which teaches K-12 students about the sustainability and compostability of paper.

Bajic and Rendell-Dean, who had worked together previously, chose to compete after talking to assistant professor at GCM, Jay Park. Both Park and associate GCM professor Natalia Lumby served as advisors to the students for the project.

“Because of my interest in social packaging, I was asking my professors at GCM if there was any way I could become more involved,” said Bajic.“ The PPA competition seemed like a good way for me to challenge myself in terms of the structural design of packaging.” 

The box Bajic and Rendell-Dean designed for the challenge is completely glue-free in order to ensure fast composting. It was also created for easy assembly by students who can simply sketch the design onto a cereal box, cut it out and put it together. They chose a hexagonal shape in keeping with TICCIT’s brand identity.

Lumby said the goal of these projects was to bring back the public awareness that “paper is a very capable and flexible substrate that is much more renewable and sustainable than some of the plastic options that we’ve been using.” 

For Rendell-Dean, this project made her more aware of the abundance of plastic packaging currently in use. In Canada, the majority of plastic waste is packaging and only nine per cent of overall plastic is recycled. 

“At the end of the day, even to have a small impact in designing packaging that’s sustainable is really important to me.”

The main priority Bajic and Rendell-Dean was to create an interesting learning experience for K-12 students through their design. “When we received the design prompt to create an educational toolkit, it was quite vague so we had to figure out what the meant by ourselves, but we thought a lot about how to make learning fun for students, which is why we chose to incorporate little games,” said Bajic.

The advising process, involving Lumby and Park, was also instrumental in helping the designs come to life. “A large part of our jobs is to recognize the talents that a student may possess and to guide them in the direction of exploring those talents,” said Lumby. 

COVID-19 posed some challenges for the students during their design process, as they were quarantined for much of the time and in two different cities. Sending materials back and forth through e-mail and mail was the way Bajic and Rendell-Dean managed to put together their submission successfully.

Lumby also explained how the lack of lab time and space affected the students. “What the students aren’t saying is that this competition also challenged them to learn and develop a new skill. Since the competition required 3D renderings of the designs, they had to really delve into learning that skill at home,” said Lumby. 

Both Bajic and Rendell-Dean agreed this competition solidified the importance of sustainability in packaging for them. 

Along with winning the sponsorship of packaging giant Westrock, the design is set to be commercialized. “The fact that the design is being printed and used is huge. This never really happens with competitions,” said Lumby.    

Second and third place prizes were awarded to the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), and the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). RIT’s team consisted of five designers, while FIT’s consisted of four, in contrast to Ryerson’s team of two.

Park added that this is an important win for the Ryerson and GCM community. 

“When it comes to bolstering the reputation of an academic institution, competitions like these are the most impressive thing that a student can do, it’s really incredible.”

The new furnace, called Furnace 83, is the 12th for the group in Italy and will give new impetus to the Tuscan plant in the province of Pistoia from 2024.

Verallia Group CEO Michel Giannuzzi announced the green light for the construction of a new furnace in October. The choice was made for the southernmost plant in Italy, one of six Italian plants of the group.

Marco Ravasi, CEO of Verallia Italia, said, “With this latest furnace, our group has invested, in the Italian market alone, an amount exceeding € 300 million.

"As I have already said on the occasion of the lighting of the new furnace in the Borgo Mantovano plant, we believe we have the moral duty to support the industrial relaunch of the country, actively accompanying the relaunch of food and beverages made in Italy.

“For this reason we have chosen to invest on the Tuscan pole, to strengthen the presence in central Italy and be able to better serve the customers in the South of the country, where in recent months a storage warehouse started operations.

“The new furnace,” continued Ravasi, “will be characterised by the adoption of the best technologies, which will allow us to have greater production flexibility, being able to quickly change colour and format, and increasingly reduce emissions.”

This is the direction the company continues to follow on its ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance criteria) roadmap, summarized by the corporate purpose defined in 2020: “Rethinking glass to build a sustainable future.”

The most challenging objective, considering the industrial size of the group, is to reduce CO2 emissions by 46% by 2030 and to pursue carbon neutrality by 2050.

Working with software firm Provenance.org, they said the guide enabled people to enter a postcode in the online router service to find the best way to recycle.

The router will tell users if they can recycle specific packaging via their kerbside collection in their postcode areas and the nearest centre that will process the material concerned.

WRAP and Valpak said many people were confused as to what the most widely used product packaging symbols represented for recycling, while inconsistent collection policies by local authorities meant there were no national rules on what can be recycle where. Packaging unnecessarily went to landfill as a result.

Valpak chief executive Steve Gough, said: “We’ve heard from brands who want to take greater ownership of their products’ post-purchase impact. 

“With Provenance, we’re excited to be enabling this by solving regional inconsistencies and easing shopper confusion with actionable instructions.”

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved reservation norms for Jute Packaging Materials for Jute Year 2021-22. As per the reservation norms, Thakur said, 100 per cent foodgrains and 20 per cent of sugar will be packed in jute bags during Jute Year 2021-22 under JPM Act, 1987. The decision is likely to bring relief to 3,70,000 workers employed in jute mills and ancillary units.

The Jute industry occupies an important place in the national economy of India in general and Eastern Region in particular i.e. West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. It is one of the major industries in the eastern region, particularly in West Bengal. 75% of the total production of the Jute Industry is Jute Sacking Bags of which 90% is supplied to the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and State Procurement Agencies (SPAs) and remaining is exported/sold directly.

Government purchases Jute sacking bags worth approximately Rs. 8,000 Cr. every year, for packing of foodgrains, hence ensures guaranteed market for the produce of Jute Farmers and Workers. Average Production of Jute Sacking Bags is about 30 lakhs bales (9 lakh MT) and Government is committed to ensure complete take off of the sacking production of the jute bags in order to protect the interest of Jute farmers, workers and persons engaged in the Jute Industry.

The reservation norms in present proposal would further the interest of domestic production of raw jute and jute packaging material in India, thereby, making India self-reliant in consonance with Aatmanirbhar Bharat. Reservation for packaging in jute packaging material consumed around 66.57% of the raw jute produced in the country (in 2020-21). It will help protect the environment because jute is natural, biodegradable, renewable & reusable fibre and hence fulfills all sustainability parameters.

The Cabinet also approved a ₹17,408.85 crore 'committed price support' to the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) for seven cotton seasons from 2014-15 to 2020-21. The decision was taken at the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The procurement of cotton at MSP helped stabilise the cotton prices and alleviate farmer's distress. Briefing media on the Cabinet decisions, I&B Minister Anurag Thakur said the CCI and authorised agencies procured 123 lakh cotton bales in 2019-20 and 100 lakh bales in 2020-21. The annual production is estimated at 350-360 lakh bales.

Greiner Packaging is pursuing various approaches to make its packaging solutions as sustainable as possible. One course of action is to use so-called circular materials – that is, renewable, non-fossil fuel feedstocks. For the first time, the packaging manufacturer has now produced a food cup made of premium polyolefins obtained exclusively from waste and residue streams. The Bornewables line of products is manufactured by Borealis, a leading supplier of polyolefins based in Vienna, Austria.

Unlike renewable raw materials produced with agricultural crops grown for food and livestock feed, the Bornewables products are made from second-generation (i.e., renewably sourced) feedstocks derived solely from waste and residue streams: from vegetable oil production as well as oil waste and residues, from the timber industry, or from the food industry – for instance, used cooking oil.

Same material performance, fast production changeover

The Bornewables offer the same characteristics as virgin polyolefin materials while boasting a substantially reduced carbon footprint.

Carbon footprint reduced by up to 120 percent

A life cycle analysis initiated by Borealis at its Kallo site in Belgium, showed that using Bornewables substantially reduces a product’s carbon footprint by at least 2.7 kg CO₂eq for every kilogram of polymer. This represents a saving of up to 120 percent in comparison to fossil-based PP from Borealis and roughly equates to charging 2,700 smartphones in a year*. Moreover, using these premium polyolefins designed for circularity reduces the depletion of fossil resources by around 69 percent. The entire Bornewables line of products has been certified as part of the ISCC PLUS (International Sustainability & Carbon Certification) system. This chain of custody certification guarantees customers that the feedstock used in the material is certified as renewable and sustainably produced and can be traced to its point of origin. Certification is based on the mass balance approach, which means that a contribution to the use of chemically recycled or renewable materials is made in every material stream. A number of Greiner Packaging’s locations are also already ISCC PLUS certified.