The environment plays a more important role than ever before in how people think about packaging, from the design to the materials selected. Metallized paperboard laminate from AR Metallizing (ARM) is a great choice for packaging today. ARM’s metallized papers offer a way to achieve a distinctive, metallic finish on the packaging of your products with only a fraction of the aluminum content and without any films or foils.
Today, metallized boxes consist of a first-grade board with a smooth surface laminated to metallized PET film. ARM’s metallized paperboard laminates are made of low-grade, recycled board laminated to a 53gsm-thick metallized paper. The smoothness of the paper will cover the low surface quality of the board. Downgrading the board’s quality will result in significant cost savings, as will lowering the total weight of the box. Why? Metallized PET film does not add any stiffness, while 53gsm fiber paper does. First-grade board with 10gsm of clay coat is less stiff than its uncoated recycled alternative.
Certification by the Centre Technique du Papier in Grenoble, France, has proven ARM’s metallized paperboard laminate is 100% re-pulpable compared with only 91% for the traditional metallized film laminates. The reason for this is that the re-pulping plant will sieve out the polluted pulp. In the case of metallized film laminates, a minimum of 9% will be contaminated foil waste that can only be placed in landfill or incinerated at a high cost. In the case of ARM’s metallized paperboard laminate, the initial pollution will only be 3%. Once further analysed, this 3% consists of long fiber pulp that can also be re-used as pulp. With metallized paperboard laminate, there is no landfill waste or CO2 generation. Each 1kg of non re-pulpable waste generated by metallized PET will produce 1.15kg of CO2 after incineration.
Converters will also notice an increased efficiency in their production lines when running metallized paperboard laminate compared with metallized PET. Metallized paperboard lamination runs faster due to better reel tension management. The use of metallized paperboard lamination also results in a reduction in glue curing time, saving on oven energy. There is less waste in the production process when using metallized paperboard laminate because this product runs like regular paper, not like film. The die-cutting process is faster because the knife is cutting through paper not film. This also yields a lower knife consumption rate. Lastly, ARM’s metallized products are printable in nearly all technologies, including conventional offset, heliogravure and flexo, avoiding the costly addition of an overlay coating on PET.
Another advantage of ARM’s metallized paperboard laminate is that the same sustainable technology applies to the HoloPRISM® holographic metallized paperboard. ARM has won numerous awards with various projects using HoloPRISM. End users can have stronger brand identity and greater shelf appeal using ARM’s line of holographic and metallized paperboard laminates while remaining environmentally responsible.