Case Study: Leading Bottled Drinks Manufacturer

An existing customer of Manupackaging UK requested a free STATS audit to investigate and determine if it was possible to achieve further reductions in cost and expenditure through downgauging and continuing to use film with recycled content. The customer was using Manunature^® RR 23mu ATX on a pallet turntable to wrap an average of 70 pallets a day; these pallets consisted of filled 500ml bottles.

Our Technical Representative analysed the wrapping process, assessing from how much film was being used to the machinery employed and its programmed settings. Trials showed that with Manunature^® RR 23mu ATX, the customer was using 650 grams of films per pallet, stretched only to 14%. This low stretch percentage may be attributable to reducing the risk of crushing the goods on the pallet, but having the ability to stretch the film further without increasing this damage risk would itself prove a significant opportunity to reduce film consumption.

Trialling Manunature^® RR 17mu ATX allowed the pallet to be wrapped with the film stretched to 29%. Although presenting top and bottom load forces slightly lower than that achieved by 23mu, the load forces achieved with 17mu were more than sufficient for pallet stability, and plastic consumption was reduced to 425 grams.

Although RR ATX grades have the same cost per material tonne, using 17mu ATX delivers a greater meterage per pallet and so demonstrated the customer was able to reduce their wrapping cost by 50p per pallet - it was also calculated that nearly 53% more pallets could be wrapped per tonne using RR 17mu ATX, than they would by continuing to use RR 23mu ATX.

Annual consumption calculations also showed that a cost saving of over £12,600 AND offsetting 1.7 tonnes of CO₂ was achievable, and as the customer would continue to use a Manunature^® RR film grade with its 30% PCR content, no Plastic Tax charges would be chargeable.

(All data and figures correct at the time of auditing, and may not reflect current rates)