ASK THE EXPERTS: Flexible and sustainable go hand in hand

The need to achieve a sustainable model is a magnificent opportunity for our industry. The reasons are indicated in the logo of the excellent campaign prepared by the FPA, the American Flexible Packaging Association: ‘Less natural resources, less carbon emission and more value’ says it all. Flexible packaging is the solution, in our opinion, as it has a lower environmental impact compared with other packaging systems such as metal cans, folding cartons, or glass. Even the ‘no packaging’ approach can result in a higher environmental impact, due to the product waste where products are not protected by packaging.

We highly recommend that you download the material of this campaign from the website www.flexpack.org, and that you send it to others. In doing this, we shall contribute to dispelling the resistance to flexible packaging due to misconceptions that exist, and we shall endeavour to increase the use of packaging solutions based on flexibles. As a result, we should be able to achieve a more sustainable model while maintaining a proper quality of life.

Because of this, in Comexi Group we strongly believe in the future of flexible packaging. But today’s converting industry has to be much more sustainable. Most gravure and flexographic printing installations of flexible packaging are using solvent based inks, emitting to the atmosphere hundreds of thousands of tonnes every year of volatile organic compounds(VOCs) and millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas, as a result of burning part of these compounds.

The packaging converting and printing process has to be sustainable too, and Comexi Group is dedicating a big R&D effort to this, developing alternative technologies that avoid the use of solvents, with the consequent environmental advantages of eliminating these emissions to the atmosphere.

In that respect, and after five years of joint research and development, Comexi Group and Sun Chemical are pleased to announce the commercial availability of the first fully industrial solution for flexographic printing by using Comexi’s E-COmexi flexographic presses and Sun Chemical WetFlex’s series of inks.

This technology was presented at drupa 2008 on the Comexi Group stand, and today is ready to be used, with proven results, to print flexible packaging substrates.

This flexographic electron beam curing ink printing process is not only allowing flexible packaging converters the use of a fully environmentally friendly technology, but also provides impressive quality advantages. This proposed solution guarantees total reliability in the heavy-duty industrial environment, achieving high printing quality with more than 70 l/cm and better brightness and properties, using a built-in inking system to guarantee fully stability in the printing process.

Achieving such a high printing resolution will allow our customers to compete more effectively in the markets which are currently dominated by gravure printing, with less cost per square metre. Nowadays we are mass-producing the first E-COmexi press, the E-COmexi FW400. Starting in February, we offer the possibility to carry out industrial runs in our R&D Centre on one of these machines. A first-class production environment will be provided, with state-of-the-art technology for our customers.

All of these factors point to the Comexi Group and Sun Chemical being the best partners for those converters who are committed to leadership in innovative solutions for the flexible packaging industry.

Comexi Group endeavours to perfect EB technology, and we are fully convinced that this new technology leap will be an effective substitute for the current traditional solvent printing for flexible packaging. Moreover, as an undisputed leader, the Comexi Group offers different solutions to increase added value of the packaging by using EB curable inks and coatings with no VOC emissions, for coating, lacquering and special effects.

We would be pleased to welcome you to our facilities to show you this revolutionary and impressive printing process in action.