Vaishali notes that consumer trends for effective packaging solutions have drastically changed over time and that sustainability agendas are being focused on globally. ‘There is immense interest in transitioning of other packaging formats to flexible packaging as they are designed to minimize the use of packaging materials, highly customizable, lightweight, and boast a low product-to-packaging ratio.

“Flexible packaging provides sustainability benefits and significant value to producers, consumers, and retailers and these packaging solutions call for less transportation and storage space than their counterparts, reducing fuel consumption and toxic carbon emissions.” Flexible packaging demand 40% less shipping space than rigid alternatives when empty and requires less landfill space when they end up in the environment.

The increase of environmental concerns and increasing sustainability awareness hasalso drawn more global attention to the use of water-based inks in flexographic printing.

“We will be focusing on shifting towater-based inks that consist of much less organic solvent with lower Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) emission issues.” She explains that as PIL works around designing for recycling, they are looking at investing in an in-house recycling facility to recover their process wastes as they keep the loop closed for the post-industrial waste.

The company also has systems in place to ensure no contamination of this waste, PIL can easily recover the material and use it in producing packaging for non-food contact applications. This she says would also help reduce the virgin plastic they use in some owner.We also work on ensuring the functional features of the packaging are designed to minimize the environmental impact of our packaging.”