Monomaterial packaging: a smart and really sustainable solution

Monomaterial packaging: a smart and really sustainable solution

It is well known that packagings for food use constitute a large percentage of the total waste produced every day. Even though on several fronts the tendency is to reduce the quantity of packagings, instead of encouraging the introduction of biodegradable and compostable materials, it is also undeniable that in the large distribution many products still require a plastic packaging, which, to the present day, is the only one capable of guaranteeing high performances for food protection and preservation.

On the other hand, despite users’ awareness considerably increased for what concerns separate collection and recycling, product packages can often be deceptive or, even more frequently, are realised with different types of materials. This ambiguity leads consumers to renounce a meticulous separation and to throw everything in a single container.

This is why, for promoting recycling and make it an easy and really efficient task, it is necessary to adopt a packaging not only attractive and practical, but also, and above all, sustainable! How? By means of monomaterial packages.

Monomaterial packaging

Monomaterial packaging indicates those packages realised with a single material, which help to reduce waste and to increase recycling. Wrappings, clingfilm and packages of different types can be reborn and become a resistant packaging, easy to dispose of and with low environmental impact.

These packages have several advantages:

  • are easily recyclable for both the final consumer and those factories investing in green solutions;
  • represent an eco-friendly and safe option, thanks to many laboratory tests which allowed to identify sturdy and functional materials;
  • are highly controlled and limit the risk of potential contaminations.

Monomaterial plastic

Generally, in the field of packaging, when talking about sustainability, we refer to the type of material. It is often exalted the use of compostable and organic materials whereas other ones such as plastic which actually, if correctly recycled, have a definitely lower environmental impact, are demonised.

Monomaterial plastic, first of all, allows a great quantity of clingfilm, packages and wrappings to be reconverted in good-quality material, which can even be reused for creating a new packaging.

By cons, on the market, there are lots of packages made of different plastic materials or coupled with paper or aluminium (for instance), really hard to separate from each other, at the time of waste collection.

These packagings may result to be higher-perfoming during use, but, at the end of their life cycle, are not, in any way, reusable.

To the contrary, in general, packagings and objects made of monomaterial plastic not coupled to other elements are easier to recycle and permit to produce new components of great quality and result more versatile and, thus, more useful and demanded on the market, being able to originate many satellite activities related to a correct waste disposal, in favour of a really circular economy.

REV and its monomaterial packages

At REV, we since ever pay great attention to sustainability and packaging disposal issues and, for years, we have been projecting solutions (some of which also patented) for realising a monomaterial and totally recyclable packaging, intended for safeguarding the environment.

This is exactly the case of the netted punnets produced by our Lion horizontal packaging machine in which, since 2010, the thermosealing technology substitutes the metal clip. Another example is Tiger, vertical packaging machine which eliminates the metal clip from packages of loose products in line.

In 2021, then, it is the turn of Puma vertical netting machine that, besides realising 100%-recyclable packages (in bag or line) with no metal clip, uses up to 50% less plastic.

All packages projected by REV are realised using the minimum quantity of plastic possible, with tangible benefits in terms of sustainability and costs.

Finally, with all machines taking advantage of a thermosealing technology produced by REV, it is possible to use certified compostable materials, instead of recyclable plastic.