Developing better packaging
solutions for the environment

THE VINYL INSTITUTE RESEARCH
reprinted from www.vinylinstitute.org

To learn more about Vinyl (PVC) packaging please visit the Vinyl Institute website

Flexible vinyl is used for food wrap, jar lids and can linings; for tamper-proofing over-the-counter medications, and for shrink-wrapping games, software and household goods.

Vinyl packaging's major benefits are:

1. Energy Efficiency - Vinyl uses at least 20 percent less energy than common alternatives. (1)
   
   
2. Low Use of Fossil Fuel - Fifty-seven percent of the PVC molecule is derived from salt and only 43 percent from natural gas or crude oil, while 100 percent of traditional alternatives come from fossil fuel.
   
   
3. Safety - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared the use of vinyl in packaging, provided residual vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) levels are below 10 parts per billion (PPB) in rigid PVC and five ppb in plasticized, flexible PVC.
   
   
4. Environmentally responsible - Life cycle analyses done by the European Commission and Plastics Europe indicate that vinyl often is the best environmental choice for packaging. (2)
   
   
5. Low dioxin source - Vinyl manufacturing accounts for less than half of one percent of dioxin emissions, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data. (3)
   
   
6. Safe manufacturing - Government data show that vinyl workers' injury and illness rates are less than the average for all manufacturing.

Notes:
1 Plastics Europe Eco Profiles
http://www.plasticseurope.org/content/default.asp?PageID=392/

2 Life Cycle Assessment of PVC and of Principal Competing Materials, commissioned by the European Commission, July 2004.
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/chemicals/sustdev/pvc-final_report_lca.pdf

3 U.S. EPA Inventory of Sources of Dioxin in the United States including poorly quantified sources
http://www.epa.gov/ncea/pdfs/dioxin/2k-update/

At LINPAC we:

• reduce energy consumption
  through optimum weight packaging
  
  
• prevent double-handling of goods - delivered straight from customer to depot
  
  
• produce no significant waste in our manufacturing
  
  
• recycle water through closed loop production system
  
  
• delivered 441 energy saving
  projects in 2006 - saving some 17 million kgs of CO2
  
  

• are trialling bioplastic films - complete 'bio' solution of tray and over-wrap
  
  
• transport full loads
  
  
• have the largest UK fa cility for the recycling of rigid packaging waste
  
  
• process and recycle an average of 30,000 tonnes of plastic
  waste annually
  
  
• use recycled PET (RPET) in
  production of trays and punnets
  
  
• reduce emissions by improving efficiencies in our vehicles