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With so much current attention being focused upon packaging as waste, it’s a relief to know that one man’s rubbish is another man’s reminiscences. Thank God, or at least the capacity for human quirkiness, for Robert Opie: self-appointed archivist of the packaging industry’s best endeavours stretching back to the first arrival of brands on Victorian retail shelves. Since 1963, Opie has pretty much single-handedly been storing up examples of anything and everything from tins of Andrew’s Liver Salts to packets of Zubes throat pastilles to provide a unique testament to the role played by packaging in shaping consumer culture.

The “chhota” pack is such a successful marketing mantra that it can now even be seen to have entered other realms — such as sports programming, for example. (Twenty20 cricket, packaged in a small fram e of 20 overs, versus the traditional 50-overs game, attracted a tidal wave of viewership, opening up massive new markets for broadcasters and advertisers.)

The inkjet solutions for packaging went beyond the usual specialty marking systems to actually demonstrate the full scale colour production of large size board and corrugated cartons on machines such as the very fast and the SunJet that was demonstrated at a customer site near Dusseldorf. Many of the newer flatbed UV inkjet printers such as the HP Scitex XP5300 and XP 2700 can also be used for some of these POP applications. Both of these are near the dozen mark as far as Indian installs.

In absolute numbers, Interpack showed a 28 per cent rise in Asian visitors as compared to interpack 2005, and an increase of 32 per cent in Indian visitors. Many of the visitors returned to Düsseldorf hardly a month later for drupa08. A visitor survey undertaken by Messe Düsseldorf indicates that 78 per cent of the visitors were interested in process technologies and equipment for packaging and converting.

The sabre eXtreme concept provides an electronic converting solution for digitally printed webs and eliminates the need for expensive rotary tooling that can often delay the converting operation. Set-up times and waste are reduced through instant make-ready and the need to lift and store heavy magnetic cylinders and dies in the workplace is eliminated.
States Tony Bell, Sales Director, “Software and hardware technology has changed since the launch of our first laser system and we have made a number of upgrades to sabre eXtreme that enhance performance and operation. They include new user-friendly operator interface, faster operating speed and enhanced cutting accuracy.”

EskoArtwork’s fully-owned subsidiary and Global Resource Centre at Bangalore will be headed by Mr.  Dinesh Chandra, who has been overseeing Esko’s Indian operations since 2000. According to Mr. Chandra, “The opening of the Global Resource Centre in Bangalorre reinforces EskoArtwork’s global market coverage, complementing the resources we have already deployed in Europe, North America and the Far East.”

The Uflex range of products extends from basic raw materials like PET chips, inks and adhesives to intermediate products like BOPET/BOPP/CPP/ coextruded films, metallised films and gravure cylinders to finished products like multi-layered laminates and pouches, holograms and packaging systems. They also make a whole range of packaging and converting machinery.

The main emphasis was on shelf ready packaging (SRP) highlighted at theme-oriented collective pavilions at the show’s Innovation Parc for Packaging. Participants in the pavilions included, among others, Heidelberg, MAN Roland, EskoArtwork, Metro, M-Real, Siegwerk, Smurfit-Kappa and COPACO. Products on display reflect the industry’s major trends such as the increased use of robots, software integration, RFID, bioplastics, waste reduction, recycling and energy saving technologies.

The last edition of this show in 2004 featured 1,866 exhibitors from 52 countries spread over 161,332 sq. m. of net space and attracted 394,478 visitors from 127 countries, 20 per cent of whom were from Asia. Indian visitors numbered 6 per cent – the third highest after Germany. This year’s event should see a further increase in these numbers.

Ever since the dawn of the industrial age, mankind has made incremental progress. From the days of the agrarian economy when there was no such thing as economic growth to today’s information age where growth and progress are the altars at which the world worships, there has been a mind boggling transformation in the way humans carry on their lives. But all this progress and growth has been accompanied by tremendously negative effects like the demise of traditional ways of living, the growth of urban slums, the contamination of the environment and socio- cultural upheavals.