As the environmental awareness of the West Countries Governments increases, we will witness more and more a growing trend of all those technologies or devices which can make the packaging more and more ecologically sustainable.

Colines^® in this sense is taking action in three different directions: tests on biodegradable raw materials, implementation of mechanical solutions with a reduced energy consumption and development of automation devices which help optimizing consumption.

As far as raw materials are concerned, Colines^® has undertaken, through the associated company B-Pack^®, to experiment on its extrusion lines with all the biodegradable resins today available on the market, such as Mater Bi, PLA, PVOH, etc. The results we are performing are more than satisfying from the point of view of the processability of such raw materials and of the tradability of the finished products.

From the mechanical point of view several are the solutions applied by Colines^® in order to cut down the energy consumption:

1 – use of asynchronous a.c. motors with high performances (95%) with liquid cooling (further margin of efficiency);
2 – use of gearboxes of the latest generation with high performances (98%);
3 – use of inverter also on motors for which it wouldn’t be strictly necessary (e.g. grinding mills) in order to lower the losses for passive currents;
4 – reaching an overall cos φ equal or higher than 98%.

On the automation front, Elav is trying out the Optegreen system, a device allowing to set with a single button the optimal parameters of the line, thus reducing consumption. The system goes alongside the LIVE project for the monitoring of the production data already available for all Colines lines.