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Die-Cutting Boards Can Be Recycled Instead of Landfilled

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    January 5, 2023 2:17 AM EST

    Many packagers recycle their corrugated and paperboard waste. But can package converters that make corrugated shipping boxes and paperboard folding cartons recycle their hardwood cutting die boards? One packaging converter has done so, which streamlined its operation and improved its sustainability efforts with an item often considered “unrecyclable.” Get more news about die cutting plastic recycling machine,you can vist our website!
    Custom carton/corrugated packaging converter and designer Batavia Container Inc., Batavia, IL, recently worked on a project with Chicago-based recycler Mid America Paper Recycling to divert several tons of solid waste from landfills, channeling the hardwood boards instead to a recycler for reprocessing and reuse.

    According to The Packaging Association of Canada, more packaging manufacturers are implementing practices such as lightweighting, downsizing, recovering materials and recycled content, composting or recycling in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save energy, and waste and improve their companies’ economics and work environments. This is being driven by an understanding that most recovered materials can replace virgin materials, resulting in landfill avoidance and potentially huge energy savings.

    An essential component required by the die-cutting industry, die-cutting boards form the basis of a flat or rotary cutting-die into which the contours of packaging are inserted. Then, the cutting and creasing rules are positioned and finally the appropriate rubber coating is applied.
    Family owned Batavia Container relies on dieboards daily. The company converts folding paperboard cartons and corrugated shipping cases at three manufacturing facilities – one in Batavia, IL another in Bedford Park, IL, and a third in Itasca, IL. The plants print and die-cut consumer and value-added specialty packaging, point-of-purchase displays, slotted corrugated shipping cases and offer custom packaging design and corrugated manufacturing.
    Running out of room

    Batavia Container’s production facilities were storing wooden dieboards for so many customers, they were running out of storage space. “We have purchased, utilized and disposed of thousands of cutting dies over the 60-plus-year history of the company,” points out Paul Mansour, Director of Account Development at Batavia Container.

    “As it is, the life of a cutting die can range from a one-time use for a custom point-of-purchase display to regular use hundreds of times. They can last for 10 to 20 years.” The question is, how to dispose of obsolete dieboards, which is an industry-wide issue, Mansour affirms. “Our industry typically puts obsolete and old cutting dies in a dumpster, and the contents ends up in the landfill.