Arvato Hightech Ireland Wins Environmental Prize

Less material, less weight, less room, less energy: The Irish colleagues at Arvato Hightech have been presented with the Repak Award 2011 for their new, environmentally friendly packaging.

A new CD/DVD packaging developed by Arvato Hightech is proof that less can really be much more. In 2010, a project was launched under the management of quality engineer Dennis Gleeson with the goal of developing new packaging for a major customer. This packaging was created to weigh less, take up less room and use fewer resources than existing solutions.

The result was impressive: The new packaging design saved 12.5 metric tons of cardboard as compared with the previous year, equaling a reduction of more than 35 percent. And that wasn’t all: Thanks to the reduced weight and less need for space, transport costs and emissions could be significantly decreased as well. The Arvato Hightech team has now won the »Best Packaging Prevention Initiative Award« from Repak for this packaging design. Repak is a voluntary initiative by Irish industry that seeks to promote recycling of packaging. The award is sponsored by Ireland’s Department of the Environment.

Arvato Hightech Ireland also developed a reusable cardboard transport box that is robust enough to be used for at least six deliveries. The Balbriggan and Swords sites worked together with a major customer on this project. As compared with the previous year, the box saved more than six metric tons of packaging material. Because the box does not need to be reassembled for subsequent use, it also saves time and thus contributes to optimization of processes as well.

In addition, no shrink film is used to wrap the transport boxes, making the heat tunnel unnecessary as well. This reduces both energy consumption and waste volume, since there is no longer the risks that discs will be damaged by the heat, so no filling material is required.