Quarterly Magazine
Fourth Quarter 2016
PET Thermoform Recycling: A Case Study in Packaging Recyclability Claims and Realities
by Resa Dimino, National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR)
Earlier this year, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s Centralized Study on the Availability of Recycling found that a substantial majority of Americans have recycling programs available to them that accept all PET packaging. Included in this designation were not only bottles and jugs, but also non-bottle PET packages: the clamshells, cups, tubs, lids, boxes, trays, egg cartons and similar rigid, non-bottle packaging made of PET (#1) plastic resin that are increasingly common on retailer shelves….
Fourth Quarter 2016
Additive Manufacturing for Thermoforming Molds
by Patrick Price, Additive Manufacturing Research Engineer, Stratasys
Traditionally, thermoforming tooling has been made from wood, RenShape board or machined metals. Although these legacy techniques are still relevant today, quality and cost concerns associated with these methods are driving thermoform part manufacturers to look for new tooling solutions for low- to moderate-quantity production runs. The market need for a solution led the engineers at Stratasys® to investigate the feasibility of additively manufacturing thermoform tooling using FDM® (fused deposition modeling) to reduce tooling cost, material waste and lead time. Figure 1 shows a part being formed over an FDM tool…