Liberty Intercept Blog

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines the concept of waste minimization as follows: the use of source reduction and/or environmentally sound recycling methods prior to energy recovery, treatment, or disposal of wastes.

This paper from Waste Management’s Insight Section called “Manufacturing & Industrial” Waste Minimization” contains a wealth of information on the subject. Because the Intercept Technology packaging material influences many industries and processes, we at Liberty Packaging are required to have knowledge in many areas. Water and water vapor mitigation, corrosion protection, electro-static discharge, insect nesting, mold and mildew, worldwide atmospheres, materials cleanliness, and general packaging concepts are just some of the matters that concern our customers, in addition to waste minimization and reduction.

I recently have been spending a lot of time thinking about the future of cars. The advances in electric and driverless cars have really stolen the show. All of this was brought about recently when I was hit by, non-driverless cars (ie. cars with drivers), I was actually hit twice, once on a bike and the other while stopped at a red light. Both were accidents, but both got me thinking that we sacrifice countless efficiencies when humans are in control of cars. The first one that comes to mind is fuel (and energy) efficiency. If we use computers to drive cars they can more effectively and more quickly communicate with other cars thus reducing time wasted at stoplights or waiting while another driver considers what he or she is going to do. A perfect world could look something like this. 

Oh, paints! One of my pet peeves as a homeowner is when it comes time to use the paints for touch-up after they’ve been stored for a time, they are a mess and unusable (see gunky rusty metal paint can at left compared to nice clean paint can after storage in Intercept packaging). The cans become rusty and cruddy, the paint inside and thick, gunky, with rust particles from the can floating through it. The issue for me then becomes the disposal of up to a half gallon of bad paint. The oil-based paints are deposited at the town’s hazardous waste drop-off, collected once a year, which is fine if I am available on that day. Latex paints are supposed to be dried out and placed in the general trash...I don’t like that. Drying out paint in the can is an unrealistic chore. Disposing of paint in the general trash pickup just doesn’t feel right.

Environmental award-winning Intercept Technology Packaging has a 20+ year history of helping companies store and ship their products around the world, reducing waste, reducing reworks and defects and more! Do you want to reduce or eliminate the use of protective oils in your warehouse or manufacturing plant? With Intercept packaging, you can easily do that.

“Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.” ~Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

“All excesses are inimical to Nature.  It is safer to proceed a little at a time, especially when changing from one regimen to another.” ~Hippocrates (c.460 - 400 BC)

According to Spaulding, Dr. Dunn explained why the focus on "going GREAN" is important:

Efficiency is important.  Having to do a job two or three times in order to make it right is a waste; it's also not very much fun either (you are currently reading my third draft). There are times where such redundancy is necessary. An example we at the ITG use to display this is the case of the armor-plated Humvee cabs.

I am curious to know if anyone else suffers from a love/hate conflict with home improvement stores. I love visiting my local home improvement store, browsing all the terrific items, finding products to solve immediate problems and gathering ideas for my dreams of more atheistically pleasing convenience.  My aversion lies in that there was once a time, not so long ago, when a home improvement store visit cost a $35.00 minimum. Now it seems to be $85.00. In fact, today’s purchase of two bags of lime, three small types of fertilizer, two cans of ant guard with tax totaled $87.50. This post is not meant to be a complaint, but is a perception based on my own experiences as a home owner for 26 years. More importantly, this story is about the changes I have made so that I frequent these stores less. Of course, most homeowners know that goal is difficult because the more things accumulated in our homes, the more items require maintenance, repair, and replacement. I have made the decision to protect my items so they don’t fail.

If you tax consumers for an item or service, you might expect them to use that item or service less to avoid paying tax. Unfortunately, the effect of Hong Kong's tax on plastic shopping bags has caused a 25% increase in the use of plastics since the levy began two years ago in July, 2009. Rather than reuse plastic shopping bags as trash bags, people have been purchasing reusable non-woven polypropylene bags for shopping and heavier-duty plastic trash bags for the purpose of garbage disposal, accounting for the increase in plastics usage.

"The food packaging industry can make a valuable contribution to reducing the wastage of food. Appropriate packaging strategies help to protect food along the value chain and to make food available to more people. Packaging preserves food, protects it from physical damage and temperature influences and makes it transportable.” At the recent Interpack 2011 trade event in Dusseldorf, Germany Christian Traumann, president of the event and chief financial officer of Multivac, acknowledged the issue of food waste as one of the most pressing problems we face worldwide.