While sustainability was a key goal in manufacturing before the pandemic, in the past two years, it has become table stakes for doing business.
Survey after survey has shown that consumers are more interested in reducing their environmental impact than they’ve ever been before and that they expect companies to do their part. Not only that, but consumers are willing to change their purchasing habits to reward companies that take sustainability seriously and punish those that don’t.
When it comes to consumer goods, a lot of attention is focused on packaging. Many of the top food companies have made sustainable packaging commitments, and there’s been a lot of innovation in this space. Mars, for example, is replacing single-use plastic with reusable packaging, redesigning their packaging to include more recyclable materials, and even investing in efforts to create compostable packaging for some iconic brands. In a particularly clever initiative, Pepsi is reusing Lay’s chip packs to create sustainable artificial turf for soccer fields.
While using sustainable materials is a huge step in the right direction, it’s not the only part of the packaging process where sustainability can come into play. What happens inside manufacturing facilities has a large environmental impact. Here are a few stats that illustrate this point:
- The U.S. industrial sector accounts for 33% of total U.S. energy consumption.
- Industry accounts for 23% of greenhouse gas emissions, primarily from burning fossil fuels for energy.
Of course, not all of that is on the packaging line, but some of it is, which is why companies need to think outside the box – meaning they need to look at the whole process, not just the actual packaging material.
As a packaging equipment supplier to many industries, we’re committed to doing our part to help in this effort. Here are four ways Garvey equipment helps you reduce your environmental impact:
- Minimizing downtime – We help ensure that your machines are never sitting idle, drawing energy to do nothing.
- Increasing line efficiency – Many of the packaging lines we see aren’t working as hard as they can, which means it takes longer (and more energy) to reach the production goal. By adding accumulators to a line, we can typically increase the line efficiency by as much as 30%.
- Reducing product loss – Accumulation reduces product damage, keeping waste out of landfills. For example, we worked with one bagel manufacturer that would regularly lose a full third of their production because the baggers would fail, causing the bagels to fall on the floor. By adding accumulation to their line, we were able to keep the bagels off the floor so they could be sold to consumers.
- Lowering the motor count – Our patented designs use fewer motors than the competition, reducing energy use.
If you’d like to increase the sustainability of your packaging operations while also boosting your throughput, contact us. Our team is here to help!