Schubert responds to EU legislation with sustainable packaging solutions at Fachpack

Having enjoyed a successful period of machinery development, Germany’s Gerhard Schubert will be among an array of global packaging machinery businesses playing their part in this year’s Fachpack event in Nuremberg.

As the company noted, this year has been an especially busy one from a legislative perspective, with the new EU Packaging & Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) along with increasing demands for climate protection across the board, which will require a key response from industry.

The topic will be high on the agenda for the show in Germany between 24-26 September, with visitors to the fair will have an opportunity to find out about the full range of sustainable, cost-effective solutions that Crailsheim-based Schubert has to offer at its stand 1-244 in Hall 1.

As an example for the new ‘Power Compact’ machine concept – high output in the smallest space with lean yet high-quality technology – a bar packer with a single-lane erector and feeding via the Comfort Feeder will be in operation at the stand. The Schubert experts will also be demonstrating how further sustainability potential through the interaction between packaging and machine technology can be harnessed.

The international sustainability megatrend is certainly nothing new for Schubert: With its Mission Blue Sustainability Initiative, the machine manufacturer has set itself ambitious goals that have already resulted in a multitude of specific measures. These are also detailed in the Schubert ANNUAL 2023 – the combined annual and sustainability report for the year 2023 – published for the first time earlier this year.

One of the company’s key objectives is to support consumer goods manufacturers on their journey towards a sustainable future. It is therefore constantly evolving our modular machine technology. On the one hand, to improve energy efficiency in machine operation, and on the other, to maximise the efficient use of all technical components in line design and achieve optimum performance from the leanest possible solution.

Lean machine concept saves resources and costs

This can be experienced live on the ‘Power Compact’ line showcased at the Schubert stand. The bar packer with a single-lane erector and blank infeed directly from the pallet via a Comfort Feeder offers manufacturers an exceptionally advantageous, lean machine concept: a very compact and space-saving line, erecting, filling and closing at 60 cycles per minute, few system components whose performance can be fully exploited thanks to single-lane carton processing, lightweight 3D-printed robot tools and a blank infeed that enables continuous operation for up to five hours without refilling. Moreover, the efficient erecting process can be flexibly integrated into other Schubert lines.

This concept not only saves material and resources, it also enables customers to achieve high packaging output with high-quality technology and surprisingly cost-effective operation.While these initiatives already go a long way towards sustainability, Schubert customers can improve their ecological footprint even further with this type of machine solution: In many cases, packaging in fully recyclable cardboard boxes can replace conventional variants with plastic film or plastic labels. The blanks fed in via the Comfort Feeder can be optimised in advance to ensure the greatest possible recycling of the packaging material. The precise, robot-assisted filling in the top-loading process is especially well suited for placing products precisely into narrow cartons and saving packaging volume – one of the new PPWR’s specific requirements.

Sustainable solutions

Whether existing cartons need to be machine-compatible, new cardboard packaging is required instead of plastic packaging or alternatives are being developed together with a packaging manufacturer, Schubert has solutions to address these and many other packaging issues. The manufacturer’s flexible, modular and easily convertible packaging machines process both conventional and fully recyclable packaging. Visitors to the stand will experience how Schubert is using its decades of experience with cardboard and the creation of innovative technologies, such as Dotlock, to develop more sustainable packaging solutions. Dotlock is a new technology for joining packaging made of solid or corrugated cardboard entirely without glue – but with the same strength as glued packaging.