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Packaging – top performance for everyday needs

Bottle, jars, pots, trays and protective films are an integral part of our everyday lives. Packaging is an enormous market, and plastic has the lion’s share.



Food, cosmetics, medicines, home-care products, DVD, magazines… a huge variety of everyday products are transported and sold in special packaging. And most of today’s packaging involves plastics, mainly because its multiple properties have allowed plastics to adapt to changing consumer behavior and the needs of all players along the supply chain. For example, society’s increasing concern about environmental issues has led to the development of new plastics that allow converters to reduce the thickness of films and bottles. The result: less transport (fuel…) and less waste.



Total Petrochemicals is making an active contribution to progress in this area. We pay careful attention to the expectations of end users and we work closely with both converters and the major brands that use plastic packaging. Requirements in this area can be very precise; take the case of the French cosmetics firm that wanted to reduce the weight of a perfume bottle from 20 to 16 grams. But in all cases, the aim will be improved performance and lower costs.

Among our solutions is the latest grade of polypropylene, specially formulated to combine transparency, lack of odor and full compatibility with foodstuffs. In addition, this grade’s high fluidity helps converters to cut production time and reduce energy consumption. Total Petrochemicals has also scored well with its multi-layer grades that combine several different polymers. These are used to make fresh-food trays that can maintain a stable atmosphere for five days while providing a barrier against moisture and oxidation.

Did you know?

Total Petrochemicals is one of the leading European suppliers of plastics for packaging, with sales of 5.8 million metric tons per year. Packaging accounts for 40% of our turnover.



Products with specific applications

The plastics marketed by Total Petrochemicals, whether in granule or power form, are suitable for a wide range of conversion processes. They may end up as film only a few microns thick, rigid packaging or either mono- or multi-layer structures. Converters melt the granules or powder and process the plastic mechanically to give it the basic shape and characteristics required. Then come the finishing operations: decoration, labeling, assembly, closure once the content is inside, and usually bundling/hooding and palletizing.

Polyethylene
Properties: flexibility and toughness, absence of odor and toxicity, transparence and gloss.

Applications: industrial and consumer packaging films (supermarket bags, palletizing shrink-films, food-grade films, agricultural films), rigid packaging (bottles and jars for cosmetics, detergents, fruit juice).



Polypropylene
Properties: lightness, rigidity, impact resistance, transparency, processability, resistance to heat and chemicals, colorability, sealability.

Applications: flexible food packaging (biscuits, potato crisps), rigid food packaging (trays, pots, bottles, closures), crates for merchandise transport and storage.



Polystyrene
Properties: transparency (in its crystalline form), rigidity and impact resistance (impact grades), processability.

Applications: trays for packaging cold cuts, fresh meat, fruit and vegetables. Its snap-break properties make it the best solution for packaging yogurt and cream desserts.