Manufacturing companies often experience a situation where they need to choose between paper and plastic as inner packaging material. Materials to consider in this regard may include packing peanuts, newsprint, bubble wrap, Kraft paper, inflatables, corrugated sheets, and shredded cartons.
Paper
There are many advantages that paper has to offer when used as void-fill. For instance, it adds a block and brace effect, depending on the type of paper substrate. The most basic paper that you can get is usually available in rolls and sheet forms. You can also consider using equipment to crimp paper sheets. It can help prevent the loss of time, which happens when you deal with paper sheets manually. Some machines run only a specific type of paper. These machines operate also based on the width of paper rolls. There is no particular method of putting these crimped sheets into a product box. It is all up to the packaging personnel. Apart from securing the products, the paper is also 100% recyclable. Since customers look for products that are not harmful to the environment, companies have to make sure to stick with Eco-friendly practices. Using paper as an inner as well as an outer packaging material is the best way to make that happen.
While there are many advantages of paper, you should also keep its disadvantages in mind. For instance, you may end up using too little packing paper inside the box, leading to the possibility of its compression allowing the product to move around. It can increase the risk of product damage. Using too much of it can lead to an increase in the overall weight of the package. The package moving up to another weight limit can increase shipping charges.
Inflatables
Another way to cushion your products inside a box is to use inflatable products, such as airbags and air pillows. These products have come down to a thickness of 1.0mil. The newer technology, however, has allowed manufacturing companies to retain the material strength while reducing the thickness. The most significant advantage of using these materials is that they become less than 1% of their size after removing the air. This factor alone makes these bags and pillows environmentally friendly. In addition to that, inflatables can be recycled. The recycling units will pick them from specific locations that process them to produce new plastic products. You can also print your brand logo and message on these bags and pillows to gain an additional marketing advantage.
Advancements in the plastic manufacturing and recycling processes have allowed companies to use plastic packaging products without worrying much about their recyclability. These products are expected to become more eco-friendly with time. Nonetheless, any plastic packaging products are not as recyclable as paper. Until we see biodegradable plastic taking over, we will see traditional plastic fill up landfills.
What you should use depends entirely on your needs. Packaging companies are striving to bring further improvements in product packaging from all aspects. You can discuss your requirements with a packaging vendor to get a piece of advice on what to use.
