What if you could use paper sacks without plastic film? Billerud Performance Barrier gives you this chance. The paper is suitable for a variety of applications including cement, building materials, chemical substances, mineral products, animal feed and dry food. Expect performance as good as conventional sacks with plastic film.
Instead of using plastic film as a barrier, we use coated sack paper. The result is a paper material that is easy for users to recycle in the well-established recycling process for paper. Your customers can pay lower fees for easy recycling. Performance Barrier is available in two versions: Performance White Barrier and Performance Brown Barrier.
Performance Barrier has a coated layer on the outside or the inside of the sack. The coating serves as a barrier against moisture vapour and provides adequate shelf-life performance. You get sacks that are easy to open and even survive light rain for a limited time. If you put the coated layer on the outside, you also get a good surface for printing. You can enhance the value of the content inside and improve your overall brand image. What is more, the surface repels dirt, making your sacks look better and cleaner.
Statistics from Eurostat* show that 8 out of 10 people recycle their paper and cardboard packaging, but only 4 out of 10 recycle their plastic packaging. Habits are often hard to break, not least in the beginning. Sacks made of Performance Barrier only consist of paper. Therefore, users can easily recycle the sacks in regular paper streams. Your customers get the best of two worlds: a high recycling rate (good for the environment) and low or no fees related to waste (good for the economy).
*Recycling: Eurostat statistics about actual recycling rates in the EU.
Sack filling is usually very dusty, which can lead to health issues and an unpleasant work environment. Moreover, valuable content is spread into the air instead of adding revenue by ending up where it belongs. By combining Performance Barrier with a QuickFill inner layer and top deaeration, most of the excess air will be removed. You don’t have to make any changes to your supply chain, and handling and filling rates remain the same.
The length of the shelf-life test depends on the product you are packing and the shelf-life claim you make to your customers. As we cannot test all potential materials, we recommend brand owners to carry out their own shelf-life tests in realistic circumstances. The test length should be at least as long as your shelf-life claim for the product.
There are two options with the new plastic film free concept. You can have the barrier layer on the outside of the bag or the inside of the bag. In both cases, the barrier should be on the outer layer of a multi-ply bag.
If the barrier layer is facing inwards, there will be no slippery surface. If the barrier is facing outwards, you obtain a nice printing surface and the bag will be more slippery than a standard industrial paper sack. Adding an anti-slip medium to the outer layer is a common procedure. Sack producers should be able to advise you on the correct medium to use.
Yes, the sacks will open just as easily as standard sacks with plastic film.
No, the sacks are not waterproof. However, the barrier layer (when applied on the outside) provides some rain resistance (we call it “shower resistance”). The sacks will withstand light rain for a limited time – we have tested up to 20 minutes in our laboratory. To be on the safe side, we recommend the sacks are protected from rain similarly to standard paper sacks.
No, the sacks will be no dustier than normal paper sacks using high-porous papers. We recommend that the inner ply of the sack be high porous paper, letting air through the sack’s wall but keeping all of the product inside the sack.
The outer layer of the sack is not permeable and neither air nor dust passes through during filling and handling. Therefore, the sack has a “sealed” outer layer and requires a deaeration system to fill quickly. The only place where product dust can escape is through the valve. Most valves are designed to prevent or at least minimise this risk, and the best solution is to have a sealable valve.
All glues which are normally used in paper sack manufacturing can be used to manufacture the plastic film free concept. We have not been able to test all the glues used in the industry, but the standard glues we used all worked with the concept.
Yes, the product meets the demand in the German BfR and US FDA for paper, for detailed information please reach out to us.
No, the outer layer of the sack (which contains the barrier) overlaps on the top and the bottom of the sack, providing an adequate barrier. Therefore, it is unnecessary, but we still recommend making the patches of barrier material.
Performance Barrier is prioritised in our total offering.