A zero impact converter
An industrial site that has been shuttered for years returns to life, becoming the new location of Imball Center: a producer of high tech flexible packaging for the food and tissue sectors that has increasingly been making quality and respect for the environment its calling card.
After a long process of recovery and repurposing, Imball Center unveiled in 2016 its new home at the former Cotonificio Oliva del Piaggione, in Valle del Serchio: nearly 18,000 square meters dedicated to printing, lamination, cutting and sealing, but also packaging and thermal bags (an area in which the Tuscan converter has been a pioneer). The concern has invested over 7 million euros in repurposing the site - as well as the surrounding area - and updating its printing systems. The interventions of course follow rational production criteria, but also reflect a precise industrial logic characteristic of the concern’s most recent developments. The new facility is not only energy self-sufficient, equipped with an autonomous hydroelectric power supply (inherited from the old cotton processing operation and now adapted and put back in operation), but has also drastically reduced the environmental impact of all processes. It currently produces virtually zero pollution and zero waste.
In late 2015 and early 2016, Imball Center Srl radically revisited its machine pool, acquiring two latest generation Windmöller & Hölscher flexo presses that print water-based inks even on plastic film and operate at 144 lines/cm2, with quality results comparable to rotogravure printing. With no more need for distilling solvents or cutting emissions, some 400 MW/hr of electricity consumption is saved.
«Thanks to these investments - comments Nicola Giuliani, marketing & development manager at Imball Center - we have moved from our previous AIA environmental certification, for concerns with medium-to-high environmental impact, to AUA, which certifies low environmental impact, an extraordinary achievement for a converter of our size».
A culture of green packaging
The near total elimination of solvents from the printing/lamination cycle has also significantly diminished the chemical risk that the system poses to workers. Virtually all the products employed are classified “non-hazardous”, and VOC exposure in the printing area has been practically vanquished.
«All this - sums up Giuliani - translates into an offer of safe packaging with less migration and “zero emissions”», without compromising quality, which is guaranteed by 30 years of experience in flexo printing of flexible packaging and UNI EN ISO9001 certification.
IN WATER WE TRUST Imball Center has created the Water Ink Pack logo in order to promote printing with water-based inks. Already adopted by numerous business clients on their packaging, it is proving to be an excellent marketing tool in retail.
THE SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE PATH TAKEN UP BY IMBALL CENTER has won the converter numerous recognitions of merit: first place in the category “Medium Web Film” at Best in Flexo 2016, where it also won second place in the category “Creative use of flexographic printing”; “Best Sustainable Project - category Medium Companies” at the Sofidel Supplier Sustainability Awards 2016.
