Dolphin Plastics & Packaging

Three Unexpected Uses of Plastics

admin — Thu, 30 May 2019 08:00:38 +0000

Plastics are synthetic polymers. There are hundreds of different varieties of plastic made from different starting materials, with different properties and niche uses. The varieties of different plastics are further expanded by different production methods, meaning that the same polymer can produce a range of different plastics. This includes high density polyethylene, which is the consistency of credit cards, and low-density polyethylene, the material used to make different forms of flexible packaging. In this article, we will expand on some of the unexpected places plastic can be found in our day to day lives.

Human Implants

Polylactic Acid (PLA) is a biodegradable plastic or ‘bioplastic’ that is derived from natural sources such as corn starch or sugar cane. It decomposes into lactic acid, the same molecule that anaerobic respiration generates from glucose. This degradation pathway is therefore easily accommodated within the human body, and that’s why PLA is used in medical implants. It is particularly useful for surgical implants that are designed to break down slowly, including screws, pins, rods, meshes and plates that can be designed to break down over between six months to two years depending upon the role of the implant.

Tea Bags

The presence of plastic in tea bags surprises a lot of people because it doesn’t seem possible! However, there is plastic in almost every variety of tea bag. Polypropylene is present at different concentrations, up to around 25% to help maintain the shape of the tea bag and prevent it breaking apart when hot water is added. For this reason, it is worth noting that tea bags are not a great thing to put into the compost.

Paper Coffee Cups

It seems like a misnomer, but paper coffee cups are actually not made entirely out of paper. In fact, paper coffee cups, like the kind you will find at almost every coffee shop and convenience store, are lined with plastic. This plastic lining is useful, because it stops the coffee from destroying the paper and spilling out all over your desk, but it makes coffee cups a non-recyclable product that clogs landfills. Because the paper itself will break down over time, the presence of so many paper coffee cups in landfills creates the conditions for producing large quantities of methane. Need Sustainable Plastic Solutions? Dolphin Plastics & Packaging is a leading flexible packaging manufacturer based in Queensland. We are committed to producing sustainable plastic packaging solutions for organisations in a variety of industries across Queensland and down the east coast of Australia. To find out more about how we can help you, call Dolphin Plastics & Packaging today on (07) 5610 5278 or contact us online.

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Latest Innovations in Plastics

admin — Thu, 16 May 2019 08:00:53 +0000

It is hard to believe that the first plastics were invented less than two hundred years ago. Since then, plastic has spread to incorporate all industries world wide, and this has improved and sustained industries whilst creating opportunities. Historic innovations in plastics allowed medicines to be stored safely and fresh produce to survive much longer on shelves, but the progress doesn’t end there. Chemists and polymer scientists the world over are still developing new plastics and finding ways to improve existing plastics become more efficient in production and reduce their environmental impact. In this article, we will cover a few of the most recent innovations in plastics.

Photovoltaic Plastics

One exciting area of polymer research that hasn’t been getting enough attention recently is in the field of photovoltaic polymers. The result of this research is the creation of plastics that are able to perform the function of solar panels, absorbing energy from the sun and transforming it into usable electricity. These polymers are an exciting area of research because they may reduce the dependence on rare earth metals and expensive components currently used in solar cells, greatly reducing their overall weight and cost in the years to come.

Compostable Plastics

Plastic pollution is no longer just a topic for environmental specialists, but for all of us. One of the biggest reasons for this problem is that so many commonly produced plastics used for single use packaging products are produced from petroleum feedstocks and are unable to be broken down by biological systems. One of the first plastics; Parkesine, was produced from cellulose, a polymer of glucose that forms the cell walls in plant cells. Cellulose based polymers have been making a comeback in recent years because they carry a plethora of bacteria and microorganisms which can digest this material, therefore reducing the accumulation of waste in the biosphere.

Photo Reversible Polymerisation

Photo reversible polymerisation is a field of polymer research that looks at creating polymers in an entirely recyclable fashion. The process for creating the plastic depends upon using molecules that bind together under one particular wavelength of light to make an object. The process is reversible because another wave length of light causes the bonds between the molecules to break and return to their original form. While this research is ongoing, the implications of it reaching a successful and distributable process is a type of plastic that is theoretically infinitely recyclable.

Need Sustainable Plastic Solutions?

Dolphin Plastics & Packaging is a leading flexible packaging manufacturer based in Queensland. We are committed to producing sustainable plastic packaging solutions for organisations in a variety of industries across Queensland and down the east coast of Australia. To find out more about how we can help you, call Dolphin Plastics & Packaging today on (07) 5610 5278 or contact us online.

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The History of Flexible Plastics

admin — Thu, 02 May 2019 08:00:23 +0000

Plastics are so present in modern life it can be difficult for people to imagine a world without them. The invention of various plastics made it possible to protect products up until their time of use, greatly increasing storage times and reducing the waste of fresh produce. Innovation in the plastics industry is ongoing and evolving in multiple directions to reduce environmental impact, improve recyclability and increase the scope of accessible material properties. In this article, we will briefly discuss this history of flexible plastics and how they have changed the world.

Parkesine

Parkesine is largely recognised as the first man-made plastic and was produced from a starting stock of cellulose. It was a characteristic thermoplastic, mouldable when hot and it retained its shape when cooled.

Cellophane

Cellophane was the first clear flexible, water impermeable plastic film. It was invented in the early 1900s after a Swiss chemist began researching ways to protect table cloths. One of its earliest uses was as a plastic packaging to wrap candy. Later, a DuPont chemist developed a way to make cellophane not only impermeable to water but also moisture, and the applications for this newer material saw cellophane spread.

Polyethylene

Polyethylene (PE) was first synthesised by accident in 1898, but it was not until around World War II that a readily reproducible and scalable synthesis was developed. At that time, its use as an electrical insulator made it highly important to protecting coaxial cables of radar sets. Subsequent innovations improved the ease of PE synthesis and led to a diverse range of accessible materials utilising this polymer.

Low Density Polyethylene

Low density polyethylene (LDPE) is one of the most commonly produced plastics in the world today. It is the material which makes up plastic bags and other thin film plastics. Its transparency is related to its density, and the thicker the film of LDPE, the more opaque it becomes. LDPE is the most common material for producing flexible packaging.

High Density Polyethylene

High density polyethylene (HDPE) is another material made of the same PE polymer. HDPE is also used as a packaging material, but it is far more rigid than LDPE and it is used for things like toys and milk bottles.

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Why Recycling, Not Banning, is the Solution to Plastic Problems

admin — Thu, 18 Apr 2019 08:00:43 +0000

Building momentum towards banning single plastic products such as straws and plastic bags is encouraging to see. The use of single-use plastics has skyrocketed over the past couple of decades and our ability to recycle these plastics at scale is still poor. However, getting rid of plastics entirely is highly unlikely and may not be the right solution to achieving long term sustainability.

It’s true that far too much plastic is ending up in landfill and as a result in natural environments like the ocean. This is unacceptable, not because we shouldn’t be using plastics, but because it is possible to recycle all plastics. The only reason we don’t is due to education on recycling practices, induvial consumption increases and because it’s not logistically or economically feasible. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

The Problem with Plastic Bans

Banning plastics could reduce the amount of visible pollution but it would be at the expense of other environmental impacts. Plastic bags require far fewer resources (water, land, CO2 emissions, etc.) than alternatives like paper, cotton or other products used for reusable bags.

According to Denmark’s Ministry of Environment and Food, you would need to reuse a paper bag at least 43 times for its environmental impacts to be equal to or less than that of a single use plastic bag. An organic cotton bag must be reused 20,000 times to produce less of an environmental impact than a single use plastic bag.

Taking a Different Approach

Of course, this doesn’t mean we should give up on eliminating plastic pollution. Instead we should focus on systematic solutions rather than those that simply appear to solve problems. We have to eliminate the use of bad plastics and start using good ones instead - good plastics being ones that are easy to reuse.

There are currently no regulations at all governing what kind of plastic packaging can be produced. Many manufacturers produce multilayer films which combine a number of different plastics that are impossible to separate and pre-process. With the right regulations and incentives, this can change.

Why Keep Plastics?

Plastics have revolutionised various industries from food to medical services. Plastics have helped reduce wastage in these areas and provided low-emission packaging solutions. Thanks to plastics, food spoilage is dramatically lower than it once was. Cars, planes and other forms of transport have reduced in weight by hundreds of kilos thanks to plastic components, meaning better performance, less emissions and more room to add safety features. Overall, far less energy is consumed in packaging in every industry.

Plastic has improved all of our lives, but it is a tool that needs to be responsibly managed to curb negative impacts like environmental pollution. With the sustained demand from the community for this to happen, it’s possible to reach a future of 100 per cent sustainable plastic.

Need Sustainable Plastic Solutions?

To find out more about how we can help you, call Dolphin Plastics & Packaging today on (07) 5610 5278 or contact us online.

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The Importance of Quality Plastic for Asbestos Removal

admin — Thu, 04 Apr 2019 08:00:10 +0000

Asbestos is a potent carcinogen that has been basically eliminated from the production of new materials. For a long time, it was used without knowledge of the terrible health consequences inhaling it can cause, and this has led to a booming industry employed in removing it. In this article, we will explain the importance of using top quality plastics during asbestos removal.

The Asbestos Boom

The asbestos boom began when its amazing qualities were widely realised. Asbestos is strong, resistant to fire, and extremely cheap. It has been incorporated into the manufacture of everything from roofing to walls to insulation and benches. In the manufactured forms it was built into, asbestos poses very little threat to anyone. It is highly effective and durable.

The Problem with Asbestos

The problem with asbestos is when it becomes aerated, which happens when anything made out of asbestos ages sufficiently or breaks. It also happens when the asbestos containing material is weathered to the point that fibres will be released even with simple manual handling. This is one reason that asbestos miners were one of the first groups of people to be negatively affected by asbestos fibres. Now the effects of asbestos are widely known, and even small exposure at any point during life can lead to irreversible consequences later down the track including death. It is for this reason that the removal of asbestos is a highly regulated industry with strict controls.

The Treatment Regime for Asbestos

In Australia, asbestos must be removed by a licensed and trained professional. There are strict environmental controls in place to reduce the risks of public and worker exposure that are thoroughly explained during the education process of these professionals which ensures that their work is professional and insurable. DIY asbestos removal and disposal carries hefty penalties due to the potential risks involved. It is worth noting that cheap imported products that can be ordered online for the disposal of asbestos often fail to meet the strict regulatory requirements of Australia.

Using Quality Plastic for the Removal of Asbestos

One of the aspects relating to the professional removal of asbestos from commercial and residential properties throughout Australia is the use of a particular specialty kind of plastic bag. Asbestos removal bags need to be a minimum of 200 microns thick and must be printed with a set of warning labels.

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Five Uses of Plastic Sheeting

admin — Thu, 21 Mar 2019 08:00:43 +0000

Plastic sheeting is a remarkably useful product for a range of different applications. It is waterproof, contaminate resistant or sterile and widely used across Australia and the world. The list of things you could use plastic sheeting for is almost inexhaustible. In this article, we will discuss five of these uses in detail.

Heat Shrink Wrap

Plastic heat shrink wrap packaging is one of the easiest solutions for efficient packaging of products using plastic sheets. Think of slabs of food products and a vast variety of consumer items in shrunk plastic packaging. There are multiple different polymers that can be used to perform shrink wrapping. Polyethylene is one of the strongest and most versatile, but polyolefin and polyvinyl chloride are also very popular.

Temporary Surface Protection

Plastic sheeting is enormously efficient at temporary surface protection like drop sheets for painting, table cloths, and medical operating rooms. Using readily disposable or easily cleanable plastic sheets can be highly efficient for both protecting the surfaces and reducing future work load.

Garden Bed Matting

Garden beds can be readily built upon existing soil structures in such a way to prevent the invasion of weeds by using plastic sheets as matting and in the process these mats can help with water retention. Depending upon the type of garden bed being built, it may be appropriate to completely insulate it from the surrounding soil, or it may be better off to use a permeable mat so that moisture and nutrients can travel in a two-way direction through the mat.

Waterproofing

Plastic sheets are great for waterproofing all manner of structures, temporary and permanent. Because polyethylene plastic is not water soluble and does not biodegrade in the presence of water, it is perfect for making waterproofing layers.

Building Greenhouses

Many people don’t realise that the manufacturing process for plastic is actually remarkably energy efficient, particularly compared to that of a substrate like glass. For this reason and the associated cost benefit, plastic walled greenhouses are on the rise locally and globally, as the thermal, light transmitting and waterproof properties of poly plastic makes it extremely useful for building greenhouses.

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The Role of Plastics in Medicine

admin — Thu, 07 Mar 2019 08:00:13 +0000

Medicine is a constantly evolving field that is always drawing on research in other scientific sectors. Materials science, chemistry and polymer engineering have created a variety of plastics that have proved indispensable to the practice of modern medicine, particularly in hospitals. In this article, we will explain some of the crucial roles plastics play in medicine.

Polylactic Acid (PLA)

Polylactic Acid (PLA) is a biodegradable and bioactive ‘bioplastic’ that can be derived from natural sources such as corn starch or sugar cane. It degrades into lactic acid, the same molecule that builds up after strenuous exercise you’re your muscles are working. This degradation pathway is therefore susceptible to occurring within the human body, and that’s why PLA is used in medical implants. It is particularly useful for screws, pins, rods, meshes and plates that can be designed to break down over between six months to two years depending upon the role of the implant.

Disposable Packaging

Sterility is extremely important for virtually all medical equipment. After all, hospitals are full of sick people with illness or diseases, and the spread of disease / infection between patients is a leading cause of death in hospitals. Once it was necessary to continually sterilise and clean every single item in a hospital, but thanks to plastic packaging, many items have freshly come out of plastic poly tubing and are designed to be sterile and ready to use.

Medical Waste Disposal

In line with the issue of sterility in hospitals and medical clinics is the issue of sanitation. Medical facilities create vast amounts of potentially toxic and contaminated waste that could cause significant public health problems if it is not disposed of adequately. Because this, hospital waste and clinical waste is varied and often requires sorting into different medical bins. Different kinds of medical waste bags are required for cytotoxic waste, clinical waste, hazardous waste, vented waste and general waste.

Temporary Surface Protection

Temporary surface protection is also an important role of plastics in the medical industry. Plastic sheeting can be applied to a variety of surfaces that are then used for the temporary placement of contaminated items, like surgery implements. This acts to reduce the risk of cross-contamination between patients as this temporary plastic sheeting can be quickly and easily disposed of with a medical bin.

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The Challenges of Waste Management in Developing Countries

admin — Thu, 21 Feb 2019 08:00:59 +0000

Plastic is a primary global concern, as there are virtually no passive or biological solutions to its spread. It has made its way into the food chain and is now present in the digestive systems of virtually all higher order consumers, including humans. Developed countries are seeing the importance of waste management. However, these processes can be a challenge in developing areas with less environmental regulation and governmental budgets.

Education

One of the primary challenges of waste management is education. Because plastic pollution is a human created problem, it depends upon humans to solve. When humans in one part of the world develop an understanding of how to recycle or reuse a particular product, whether it’s plastic film, plastic sheeting or other plastic packaging materials. it is a great challenge to meaningfully disseminate and share this knowledge so that the whole world can benefit from it.

Technology and Machinery

The global rate of technological innovation and spread of industrialisation is mind boggling from a distance. Up close it is fraught with risks and dangers. One of the biggest issues that have occurred is that the technology for producing packaging materials spread across the globe before and faster than the technology for dealing with the waste of that production. This means countries can have all of the machinery for producing plastic bags years before they have the infrastructure for recycling them, creating a massive problem in the meantime. A solution to this problem is to distribute the machinery, knowledge, education and technology required for recycling at the same time as that for production. The problem with this solution, however, is that many of the players involved in the global distribution of the production machinery are primarily profit motivated, rather than looking at the impact on the environment.

Transportation

Developing countries often have enough problems distributing products for consumption, and therefore the adequate transportation of waste can be under-resourced and undervalued. It can be difficult for many companies and governments to allocate the funds for the proper transportation of waste to recycling centres without education, and in situations where such centres are a great distance from the point of waste creation.

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Recycling and Waste Management – What Are the Laws?

admin — Fri, 08 Feb 2019 10:48:18 +0000

There are various policies governing waste and resource recovery in Australia. This includes the National Waste Policy, which outlines roles and responsibilities for collective action by businesses, communities, governments and individuals. There are also policies at the local and state level, which are often tailored to respond to particular issues in a region. In Queensland, we have the Waste Reduction and Recycling Act 2011, which contains a suite of measures aimed at encouraging recycling and reducing waste generation and landfill disposal. The Act outlines offences for mismanagement of waste as well as requiring government bodies to have waste management plans in place.

Queensland’s Resource Recovery and Waste Strategy

With increasing demand from the community for action on issues such as plastic pollution, new strategies are also being introduced around the country to further improve recycling and reuse of resources across industries. In March 2018, the Queensland Government announced a comprehensive new strategy to increase recycling and recovery. The goal is to:

Provide the resource recovery and waste sector with the policy certainty that has been lacking, leading to significant underinvestment in new and expanded resource recovery infrastructure in Queensland.
Prioritise waste types for action and identify key re-investment opportunities.

It is underpinned by a waste disposal levy aimed at encouraging businesses to find ways to recycle their waste rather than sending it to landfill. For example, there are a variety of special recycling plants that accept plastics for reuse.

Levy Rates

The levy is set to come in place on 1 July 2019. Below are the proposed rates which are set to increase by $5 on 1 July every year.

$75 per tonne of general waste (includes municipal solid waste, commercial and industrial, construction and demolition)
$155 per tonne of regulated waste: category 1 (includes pharmaceuticals, oxidising agents, cyanides, fire debris, mercury, organic solvents and more)
$105 per tonne of regulated waste: category 2 (includes sewage, tyres, asbestos, acids, animal effluent, grease trap and food processing waste, lead, mineral oils and more)

There are exemptions for things like waste resulting from natural disasters and certain types of lawfully managed and transported asbestos.

How Businesses Can Respond to Waste Policy

It may soon be more economical to find ways to recycle or reduce waste than to take it to landfill. There are many organisations that recycle materials for a range of industries, for example, repurposing construction waste. At Dolphin Plastics & Packaging, we have a recycling and pelletising machine to recycle and incorporate any waste material produced into other goods to minimise our contribution to landfill. Our recycling percentage is between 60%-90% of all waste. Reusing this recycled material ensures materials are manufactured from sustainable raw materials and there is a significant reduction in our environmental footprint. We also have an on-site recycling program, where any plastic materials that cannot be processed through our on-site recycling facility get sent to a recycling plant in Brisbane. There they use the recycled material to manufacture a wide range of different plastic products.

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How Peanut Butter Shaped the Plastic Industry

admin — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 08:00:05 +0000

It has been a long time since food manufacturers started transitioning products from glass containers to plastic. While some manufacturers of spreads like jam and vegemite seem to favour glass jars, peanut butter is nearly always in a plastic container these days. In fact, peanut butter brands were among one of the first major products to transition to plastic jars, creating a ripple effect in the food industry. It started in 1988 with Best Foods deciding to put Skippy peanut butter in a plastic jar, saying consumers liked it more.

Why Change from Glass?

Parents were delighted when the risk of glass shattering was eliminated when the kids wanted to have peanut butter sandwiches. Food producers loved the ability to use packaging that was more sustainable and cheaper to produce and transport. Glass may look fancy, but the downsides of the material came to be too much for producers. From the risk and danger of breakage to the increased weight, PET packaging came to be more viable in every way.

Other Peanut Butter Producers Transition

Peanut butter producers, Planters, switched to plastic packaging and now uses 84 per cent less material by weight. The lightweight, shatter-resistant plastic jars allowed them to pack more on trucks, and they claim that the change from glass to plastic resulted in an estimated 25 per cent reduction in the number of trucks on the road delivering the product. U.K peanut butter brand, SunPat, also switched to plastic packaging, reducing its weight by 90 per cent. Their new jar contains 50 per cent recycled plastic, and, like other plastic jars, delivers a lower carbon footprint during transportation. When compared with glass jars, a truckload can contain up to one third more plastic packaging because it is lighter and can take up more space without overloading. Since plastic packaging is less likely to break, it also reduces the need for a lot of secondary packaging. These factors also help prevent food waste, save on total transportation energy required, and decrease greenhouse gas emissions.

Benefits of Using PET Plastic Packaging

Easy access to raw materials
They are less likely to break and cause the contents to spill out
Lighter and therefore easier and cheaper to transport products
They are lighter than glass, therefore it costs less to ship
Less energy is required to produce them
PET plastics are generally cheaper
PET plastics are BPA free and fully recyclable
They are easy to print on
They are durable and flexible
PET bottles reduce wastage because they can be resealed
They serve as excellent oxygen barriers, which protects and preserves the product
PET has high clarity just like glass. The transparency allows the customers to view the product within

Need Plastic Packaging for Your Food Products?

Dolphin Plastics & Packaging is a leading plastics manufacturer based in Queensland. We are committed to producing sustainable plastic packaging solutions for organisations in a variety of industries, including food production across Queensland and down the east coast of Australia. To find out more about how we can help you, call Dolphin Plastics & Packaging today on (07) 5610 5278 or contact us online.

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