04.07.2022

As the name suggests, machine stretch film or machine stretch wrap is designed to be applied with a stretch wrap machine. Machine stretch film is the ideal solution for large to medium scale operations intending to wrap products efficiently and quickly.

In comparison to hand film, machine film offers a number of benefits, including:

More efficient and faster product packaging

Reduced cost of packaging materials

Safer application

More secure, safer loads

Machine stretch film comes in a variety of colors, gauges, and can be used in a seemingly endless number of applications.

AAA Polymer offers a large inventory of machine stretch films, including blown machine stretch film and cast machine stretch films. Continue reading to learn more about our machine stretch films and machine stretch wraps.

Although machine stretch films are offered in a variety of gauges, colors, and applications, the main variable is whether it's blown machine stretch film or cast film.

Blown stretch film is made by through a process called blown extrusion - where the film is gradually cooled by the surrounding air. In contrast, cast machine stretch film or cast stretch wrap is formed by feeding a sheet of heated resin along a rolling path with chilled rollers. The cooling of the rollers causes the film to solidify, and it's then made into large rolls.

Blown film is actually tougher and has less of a chance of puncturing than cast film. This is caused by the slower cooling process that allows the blown film molecules to spread out instead of aligning as they do in cast film. Cast machine cast wrap has a glossier, clearer finish, which allows different scanning technologies to be used. Also, cast unwinds quieter and is easier to stretch than blown film.

At AAA Polymer, we offer both blown machine stretch film and cast machine stretch film with two-sided cling. However, we also offer cast machine stretch film with one-sided cling.

Know Your Glove Materials: Part IV Poly
Polyethylene is the most affordable glove material and is used in the food service industry. Food service workers need a glove with enough durability for short-duration tasks, and poly gloves are the right choice.

Like polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyethylene was first created by accident. German chemist Hans von Pechmann made the first polyethylene in 1898. In 1933, Reginald Gibson and Eric Fawcett, two scientists at Imperial Chemical Industries, also accidentally created polyethylene, and their employer would be the driving force behind the material’s innovation in early years.

Polyethylene is a polymer that is synthesized from ethylene and a thermoplastic that is formed into various shapes as it cools from a liquid state to a solid state.

There are different forms of polyethylene, with one being high-density polyethylene (HDPE), which is the harder form of the plastic. Low-density polyethylene (LDPE) is thinner, less opaque than HDPE and used to make plastic grocery bags, dispensing bottles and disposable gloves. It is a flexible and tough material though not as durable as other glove materials.

LDPE is a non-leaching plastic in its natural state. This means it will not release unwanted chemicals into food, which is why poly gloves are suitable for the food service industry. Additionally, LDPE is used for creating protective film for food packaging.

Two polyethylene sheets are seamed and sealed with heat to create disposable gloves. Because poly gloves are not dipped like latex, nitrile and vinyl gloves, they are not impervious to liquids. Vinyl gloves are a suitable alternative for food services tasks where liquids are present.

The food service industry requires workers to change their gloves often. In a sandwich deli, for instance, an employee would make one customer’s order. Afterward, he or she should follow proper handwashing guidelines and don a new pair of gloves for the next customer. Given the frequency of these changes, the industry requires a cost-effective glove material, which is why poly gloves are the preferred choice.

Poly gloves are also powder and latex free. Both traits are beneficial for preventing allergic reactions among workers and customers. Given that the gloves directly touch food that is ingested, the latex and corn proteins that cause the reaction could easily enter a customer’s body, possibly leading to a more severe reaction.

How to Set Up Plastic Bags Making Business
Wondering if plastic bag making business is a good idea? Yes, it is! Plastic bags are used every single day, especially by retailers and vendors to sell various goods. A single shop would use thousands of plastic bags in just one month! This makes it a great business to venture into.

Regardless of the size of the business, almost every seller requires plastic bags to sell their products to their customers. This means that the market potentiality of making plastic bags is high since the demand is huge on a daily basis. It won’t be an exaggeration to say that millions of plastic bags are used on a daily basis in any given city. This offers a huge market to the plastic bag making business.

Extruding

An extruder machine heats the polyethylene plastic at a temperature of 500°F, which causes the pellets to melt. The melted pellets are then put into the machine and die to determine the thickness of the bag.

Printing

After extruding, the plastic bags are cut in the desired sizes, and handles are made. The printing stage follows this, where the plastic bags are put into the printing machines and are given the required textures.

Bag Making

In this step, the plain rolls or the printed ones are put into the plastic bag making machine. You can choose from the numerous options available like holes, handle punching, slits, zip locking, vents, etc. Select the desired function and proceed to complete the step.

Finally, the manufactured plastic bags are packed into boxes and dispatched. You can produce thousands of plastic bags in just a few minutes.

Taking Aim at All Those Plastic Bags
San Francisco last week offered an answer to the question. Paper is fine. But plastic isn’t — unless it’s biodegradable.

By a 10-1 Board of Supervisors’ vote, San Francisco became the first major American city to ban the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags by supermarkets, drug stores and other large retailers.

The paper-or-plastic question has long been a vexing one. Paper bags, of course, are biodegradable and recyclable, and are made from trees, a renewable resource. But the production of paper bags generates significantly more air and water pollution; manufacturing and recycling them requires more energy than their plastic cousins do, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Paper bags also take up comparatively more space in landfills, where they are slow to degrade, like most everything in a landfill. A study for the American Forest and Paper Association estimated that about seven billion paper bags were used in the United States in 2003.

On the other hand, plastic bags made of polyethylene, which dominate the market, are non-biodegradable and are made from crude oil and natural gas, both nonrenewable resources. They can be recycled, but are mostly discarded.

The E.P.A. estimated that only 5.2 percent of the plastic bags and sacks in the municipal waste stream in 2005 were recycled, compared with 21 percent of paper bags and sacks. And there are also horror stories about animals swallowing them and starving to death.

Plastic bags have virtually taken over the grocery market since they were first put at check-out stands in 1977. Ninety percent of all grocery bags are now plastic, according to the Progressive Bag Alliance, an industry group of plastic bag manufacturers. Estimates of the number of plastic bags used around the world each year vary wildly — from 100 billion to as many as one trillion.

Whatever the number, it’s a lot. And that has made for a lot of plastic bag litter — which, the E.P.A. says, can take 1,000 years to decompose.

One reason for the abundance of plastic bags is economic. A standard plastic grocery bag costs about a penny to produce, according to the plastics industry, compared with 4 cents to 5 cents for a paper bag. Compostable plastic bags would cost from 8 cents to a dime, the industry says, although supporters of the San Francisco action say the cost would drop as more local governments require them.

Several states have addressed the issue in other ways. California now requires large supermarkets to set up a system for customers to recycle plastic bags. Rhode Island has teamed up with grocers to collect plastic bags for recycling.

Because of a tax, Ireland has cut the use of plastic bags by 90 percent, according to the Irish government. Taking matters further, several countries, among them Bangladesh and Bhutan, have banned them.

Ikea, the Swedish home furnishings and accessories chain, has just begun charging customers 5 cents per plastic bag in the United States, which it donates to American Forests, a conservation group. On average, its United States stores have gone through about 70 million a year. In Britain, Ikea says, it has seen a 95 percent drop in plastic bag use since it began charging for them there last spring.

Yet another alternative is to sell consumers reusable bags.

“The paper versus plastics question takes us off the issue, which is consumption,” says Vincent Cobb, who offers reusable bags and containers on the Internet. He admits to using plastic bags, which he calls a “fantastic product,” but not as many as in the past.

“Getting into the habit of bringing your own shopping bag,” he says, “can slash this problem across the board.”

What is a printer?
A printer is a device that accepts text and graphic output from a computer and transfers the information to paper, usually to standard-size, 8.5" by 11" sheets of paper. Printers vary in size, speed, sophistication and cost. In general, more expensive printers are used for more frequent printing or high-resolution color printing.

Personal computer printers can be distinguished as impact or non-impact printers. Early impact printers worked something like an automatic typewriter, with a key striking an inked impression on paper for each printed character. The dot matrix printer, an impact printer that strikes the paper a line at a time, was a popular low-cost option.

The best-known non-impact printers are the inkjet printer and the laser printer. The inkjet sprays ink from an ink cartridge at very close range to the paper as it rolls by, while the laser printer uses a laser beam reflected from a mirror to attract ink (called toner) to selected paper areas as a sheet rolls over a drum.

Different types of printers

There are many different printer manufacturers available today, including Canon, Epson, Hewlett-Packard, Xerox and Lexmark, among many others. There are also several types of printers to choose from, which we'll explore below.

Inkjet printers recreate a digital image by spraying ink onto paper. These are the most common type of personal printer.

Laser printers are used to create high-quality prints by passing a laser beam at a high speed over a negatively charged drum to define an image. Color laser printers are more often found in professional settings.

3D printers are a relatively new printer technology. 3D printing creates a physical object from a digital file. It works by adding layer upon layer of material until the print job is complete and the object is whole.

Thermal printers produce an image on paper by passing paper with a thermochromic coating over a print head comprised of electrically heated elements and produces an image in the area where the heated coating turns black. A dye-sublimation printer is a form of thermal printing technology that uses heat to transfer dye onto materials.

All-in-one printers are multifunction devices that combine printing with other technologies such as a copier, scanner and/or fax machine.

LED printers are similar to laser printers but use a light-emitting diode array in the print head instead of a laser.

Photo printers are similar to inkjet printers but are designed specifically to print high-quality photos, which require a lot of ink and special paper to ensure the ink doesn't smear.

Older printer types

There are a few first-generation printer types that are outdated and rarely used today:

Dot matrix printer: Dot matrix printing is an older impact printer technology for text documents that strikes the paper one line at a time. Dot matrix printers offer very basic print quality.

Line printer: A line printer prints a single line of text at a time. While an older form of printing, line printers are still in use today.

Features to look for in a printer

The four printer qualities of most interest to users are:

Color: Most modern printers offer color printing. However, they can also be set to print in black and white. Color printers are more expensive to operate since they use two ink cartridges -- one color and one black ink -- or toners that need to be replaced after a certain number of pages are printed. Printing ink cartridges or toner cartridges are comprised of black, cyan, magenta and yellow ink. The ink can be mixed together, or it may come in separate monochrome solid ink printer cartridges, depending on the type of printer.

Resolution: Printer resolution -- the sharpness of text and images on paper -- is usually measured in dots per inch (dpi). Most inexpensive printers provide sufficient resolution for most purposes at 600 dpi.

Speed: If a user does a lot of printing, printing speed is an important feature. Inexpensive printers print only about 3 to 6 sheets per minute. However, faster printing speeds are an option with a more sophisticated, expensive printer.

Memory: Most printers come with a small amount of memory -- typically 2-16 megabytes- that can be expanded by the user. Having more than the minimum amount of memory is helpful and faster when printing out pages with large images.

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