Nosco’s Solutions Engineering team works directly with sales and customers to collaborate on packaging designs, select materials and develop strategies to achieve their objectives. Each Solutions Engineer works in a consultative manner to offer recommendations that help customers make sound choices for their printed packaging needs. In addition to working one-to-one with customers, Nosco also partners with raw material suppliers to develop new sustainable products. In fact, over the past year, we have focused our efforts to research, develop, test and launch new sustainable product offerings across all product lines.
Sustainable Materials
Nosco’s four core product lines include cartons, labels, inserts and flexible packaging – all of which encompass varying materials, manufacturing processes and performance standards. Major developments for 2023 include:
- Cartons – Our Solutions Engineers have tested and commercialized ReMagine 30% post-consumer waste paperboard to offer sustainability benefits, while maintaining the appearance and quality performance of legacy SBS paperboard. Additionally, in 2023, the team developed and launched Nosco’s EcoClear Film™ for StretchPak carded packaging. This development replaces PVC (vinyl) film and is completely recyclable alongside its paperboard components.
- Labels – To support our label customers, Nosco introduced a 50lb semigloss label material with 30% post-consumer waste and an FSC certification. Nosco’s sustainable label portfolio was also updated with clean flake recyclable label material options that do not require the label to be removed from an HDPE, LDPE or PET bottle during curbside recycling.
- Inserts – In regard to paper inserts, Nosco’s Solutions Engineers have worked with customers to reduce their usage of paper pulp by transitioning from 30lb paper to 27lb paper. This reduction in paper weight is a simple but effective means to lessen raw material usage, while maintaining the packaging’s integrity.
- Flexible Packaging – The Nosco team continues to test and commercialize mono-material polyethylene film structures that can be 100% recycled at most grocery store drop-off points.
Looking ahead, Solutions Engineering will continue to focus on various efforts to improve the sustainability of the packaging components we provide to customers. Some of these efforts include identifying:
- Existing post-consumer waste materials
- Easily recyclable materials
- Compostable materials