17 Dec 2010 Green Packaging Group Welcomes Excellent Packaging & Supply
Posted at 03:10h
in Inside Sustainable Packaging
We are very pleased to be able to now include the terrific, biodegradable food service products Excellent Packaging offers on our www.greenpackaginggroup.com web site. The B2B product directory we are building is far from complete but we feel like we have taken a giant step forward by adding a quality supplier in this crucial area of disposable food service packaging.
Excellent Packaging is a full member, so their president Allen King will now also be a featured author on the expert blog we provide our visitors. His first post is up and I encourage you to visit the site and learn more about Allen, his company and their products. You can also learn more about our new sustainable teammate on this press release.
Why Globe Guard Paper Mailers?
For green minded customers who will not accept plastic products, Globe Guard 50% recycled content paper mailers have been a very effective way to mail or ship relatively flat products such as books, photos, etc. The gussetted, three-dimensional mailer envelopes are ideal for thicker, bulky soft goods like tee shirts and reusable bags.
Even though they are paper, they offer enough water resistance for most applications and are strong enough to hold up through USPS, FedEx or UPS shipping. 
Globe Guard Corrugated Boxes[/caption]
(Note: this post written by Dennis Salazar also appeared on Nashville Wraps blog on July 6th, 2009)
Sustainable Packaging Creates Strange Bedfellows
I may be paraphrasing the old adage about politics but there is absolutely no politics involved in the decision for 
Most people and their own customers recognize Nashville Wraps as an innovator and leader in their market of decorative, retail and gift packaging. They long ago committed to making their products and company as green as possible and made news in the green and packaging communities with their Green Way® product line.
Our company, Salazar Packaging, Inc. has been working toward the same goal in our product area of green, eco friendly packaging products for secondary (shipping) purposes. We created and trademarked the Globe Guard® line of 100% PCW boxes and began promoting them in 2007. 
The photo above shows the three items we ordered whose combined volume is 582 square inches. The box they used was a 16” X 10.5” X12.25” high, which provides 2,058 square inches of packing space. Because the box was almost four times larger than it had to be, 600 (un-inflated) square inches of an inflatable void fill product had to be used to fill the oversized void. Before you think this is just another story of a packer using the wrong box to fill an order, the green “wanna be” picture gets much worse for Staples. 
When in doubt, claim everything?
There are certain packaging product areas where green has an even greater amount of “gray” and that most definitely includes bio-plastics. Consider the variety of products and applications out there and you will see the obvious problem. To me “plastics” means packaging films for wrapping, shrinking and forming. To our reader Neil, plastics are about disposable cutlery. Can “standards” ever be the same for both of us? 
In our efforts to help companies become more green, we often look for what we refer to as "low hanging sustainable packaging fruit". That is those little, easy changes that can be implemented quickly with little or no investment required. In fact the sweetest fruit is that which results in immediate savings -- and with the help of a good customer, we found a terrific area for immediate and easy green savings!
Slip sheets are those almost invisible layers of packaging material you usually find between a pallet and a product load or even in between layers of a product load. Many companies will add a second slip sheet to the top of the load, in case the pallet is double stacked. Slip sheets provide some level of abrasion protection and are used primarily to keep products clean. On certain types of product loads, they can even be used to eliminate or avoid a pallet altogether. Slip sheets can be made of plastic, paper board or corrugated. Regardless of material type, what they almost always have in common is that slip sheets are certain to wind up as waste, as soon as the load arrives at its destination.