Today plastics are emerging as a widely used packaging material. With this status of plastics more and more concerns are arising about the quality and safety of the products. Their ability of compromise is been questioned. Hence there is a remarkable hike in the high quality and safe packaging material, particularly for the food and medicinal industry.
The barrier film technologies provide a wide range of commercialized packaging options which have the following features:
- Good preservance
- Protection and optimization of the product life
- Reduced preservative use
- Contributes to gloss and transparency
These packages prevent short lived products such as food and pharmaceuticals from deteriorating.
Barrier Packaging and its Challenges
There are various factors in the film industry that holds the restriction. Factors like recycling problem, cost and volatile degradation nature are very important to be considered and taken care of foe a better and quality packaging. One of an example is EVOH, which is water sensitive as it absorbs atmospheric moisture and the barrier loses its properties to oxygen and carbon dioxide.
Recycling plastic is a universal problem as some of them still stand as non bio-degradable to the environment. Even a single layer of plastic is difficult to manage. When multi layered structures consisting of multiple plastics are used, then mechanical recycling turns out to be a very difficult task. These multiple layered plastics cannot be recycled easily. Now that these layered structures are almost impossible to recycle, they can be incinerated or put into anaerobic pyrolysis to use the energy or fuels.
Feasible Packaging
The public pressure of reducing the impact of the packaging industry on the environment is increasing every day. The barrier industry has to respond to the environmental concerns of the consumers and has to come up with a more eco friendly pack without affecting the quality and performance. The light weight will contribute to the reduction in package costing and the reduction in polymer usage will help cut cost in the increasing polymer price condition.
Some industries have even started creating cellulose based barrier films, which are renewable and biodegradable. These new age barriers films are made of natural and compostable substrates. They have great potential and offer essential barrier packaging solutions.
Many barrier film producers state that these are more eco friendly due to their light weight as they can be replaced for the heavy weighing materials like metal, glass or rigid plastics. This flexibility also contributes to less transporting energy.
Market Analysis
The growth in the market share benefits the high barrier packaging film demand. With the focus driving on to the life extension and cost effectiveness the chains have expanded and dominated the trade of food and drinks market for years. Independent and local stores with unpacked food have traditionally dominated the food and drink retails of the developing countries. But these days even the developing countries are showing their interests in the domestic super/hyper markets. With more customers coming in contact with the western shopping cultures, there will be more retail expansion of barrier packaging demands.
The customers of the developing countries are remarkably favoring the hypermarkets or supermarkets. Wide range of products and availability of exclusive brands which are not easily available in other local outlets are the factors supporting the growth of such shopping destinations. Also the private outlets and discount stores attract those with lower income to buy packaged edible products at an affordable range.
