The Impact of Sustainable Stretch Film Practices

Packaging plays a vital role in today’s fast-paced business landscape, ensuring product protection, preservation, and presentation. As the packaging industry continues to grow and adapt to changing market demands, it’s crucial for companies to stay ahead and offer exceptional packaging solutions. To provide insights into this dynamic landscape, we have developed Packaging Talks – a series of conversational panels with Crawford’s packaging experts. Whether you’re a business owner, a packaging professional, or simply curious, our panels aim to offer valuable information and inspiration. 

In this installment of our Packaging Talks, we chat with Carey Berdock, Crawford’s General Sales Manager, about the impact of sustainable stretch film practices.

Carey, there has been a lot of recent discussion surrounding sustainable stretch film practices. Could you provide more insight into what this buzz is all about?

Absolutely. Stretch wrapping is often an overlooked aspect in industrial settings, yet it’s a key area where inefficiencies arise. Many customers either overwrap their pallets, leading to excess plastic waste and higher stretch film costs, or underwrap them, which can in turn cause transit damages. Sustainable stretch film practices focus on optimizing the stretch wrapping process. This involves selecting the right film for the load type, using suitable equipment with proper settings, and ensuring the equipment is fine-tuned to work well with the specific film. These methods significantly reduce material use, which in turn reduces the environmental footprint, labor needs, and costs. Through our Wrap It Right program, we’ve helped clients cut their annual stretch film expenses by over 30%.

This sounds very interesting. What is the Wrap It Right program?

The Wrap It Right program, designed by Crawford Packaging, aims to implement these sustainable stretch film practices. The program includes assessing current products used, examining the type of loads and methods applied. Based on this assessment and our observations, we offer custom improvement suggestions and provide tailored solutions. The program’s goal is again to lower costs, boost sustainability, and reduce in-transit damages by optimizing stretch film use, equipment adjustments, and performance.

Can you share an example of a recent Wrap It Right assessment?

Certainly. Each client has unique needs, and we conduct numerous assessments. A recent interesting case involved a medical supplies distributor. They struggled with product damage during shipping due to inadequate stretch film and inconsistent wrapping practices, leading to excessive material waste. Our solution involved adjusting their containment level, eliminating unnecessary wraps, speeding up the carriage to reduce overlap, and shortening cycle times.

And the outcomes of these changes?

The results were remarkable! Following our recommendations, the client saw a 23% decrease in stretch film costs, a 33% reduction in film usage, and a 30% improvement in load containment. They also halved their roll changeovers, enhancing efficiency and performance in their packaging process. These improvements not only saved costs but also elevated their overall operational effectiveness, and of course, reduced their environmental footprint.