Video reflection: How it's made + Giving packaging a new life

How it's made

This series is about how to make different packaging. It well explained the methods of production and steps of manufacturing process. After watching these videos, I find out that lots packaging material can be recycled in order to minimize production wastes. For example, glass and aluminum, the cut out part can be recycled.

Firstly I was surprised by the speed of production. These machines operated with no required of human, all it need is one person to monitor. It’s very interesting to see that during the manufacture process such as making corrugated cardboard, glass bottles, metal containers and can were mostly machine operated and did not require much human contact. All the process was done by machine from pressing, steaming, stacking, perforating, scoring, colouring, gluing to folding. . I realized that packaging can easily be manufactured with high quality and speed.

Glass bottle which can be recycled endlessly and it cost less energy than using metal and plastics.

The most important point that I find out in these videos is the benefit of using tetrapak. Even the recycling process is very complicated, but it is made from 100% recycled material. Tetrapak container is now use alot in packaging drinks and foods, It is formed by three different materials which are plastic, paperboard, and foyer. Tetrapak can keep the drink and food fresh for one year without fridge.

  

As a designer, it’s very important to think about the manufacturing process that making the everyday product.

Giving packaging a new life  

 By watching this video, it let me know what kind of material can be recycled and how the wastes are recycled. Before watching this video I always thought recycling is very simple and it would be a really long process, that machines involvement is required only after the trash is sorted manually by human. 

The technology used is really new to me. The thing that amazed me most is the use Optical Sorting System that can identify which kind of plastics the packaging is made from and sort it into categories. In last few years, Germany had been very successful in recycling waste. But large amount of energy require during the recycling process will be a problem, because it will increase the cost of recycling.

Although, the recycling technology is very progressive, there still have some material can not be recycled. So as industrial designers, We need to incorporate with this approach when we designing product. i realized that  the package need designed green and easy to recycle or disposal.