Award-winning pouch excels for Ecolab

Coextruded pouch structure from Ampac replaces laminated version, yielding multiple benefits for this provider of water, hygiene, and energy technologies and services.

INDUSTRIAL POUCH. Ecolab’s new pouch is a 6-mil coextrusion that offers users a safe, tight, collapsible pack for liquid industrial products.
INDUSTRIAL POUCH. Ecolab’s new pouch is a 6-mil coextrusion that offers users a safe, tight, collapsible pack for liquid industrial products.

Ecolab Inc.’s 45,000 associates work to make the world cleaner, safer, and healthier by providing technology and services in water, hygiene, and energy markets, which include healthcare and industrial applications. And sustainability efforts are genuine for the St. Paul, MN company, earning it a sixth-place ranking from Newsweek on its Global 500 list of “World’s Greenest Companies” and fourth-place on the U.S. 500 list.

Packaging plays a central role in Ecolab’s sustainability efforts, recognized recently when the Institute of Packaging Professionals announced that the Ecolab Oasis Pro 2L Pouch was a 2014 AmeriStar award winner in the Industrial/Commercial category.

Commenting on the pouch from Ampac, the awards competition said, “The Oasis Pro is a comprehensive, easy-to-use, closed-loop dispensing system for consistent proper dilution of high-performance cleaning products. Its flexible packaging reduces plastic waste by 80 percent compared to traditional containers and ready-to-use solutions. It uses less packaging with less freight waste. Ecolab uses a unique collapsible bag with self-closing port to offer a closed-loop dispensing system to limit contact with the chemistry while also minimizing waste.”

Jeff Schultz, Ecolab’s Senior Packaging Engineer, RD&E, says, “Our mission is to make the world cleaner, safer, and healthier and is the main driver behind how we package our products. Ultimately, in our world, it’s all about containment. We strive to develop systems that are safe, ergonomic, cost-effective, high-quality, and regulatory-compliant. Around the world, businesses in the foodservice, food processing, hospitality, healthcare, industrial, and oil and gas markets choose Ecolab products and services to keep their environments clean and safe, operating efficiently, and help them achieve their sustainability goals. Packaging plays a huge role in delivering to our customers.”

According to Schultz, the 2-L Ecolab Oasis Pouch liquid containment system serves as a combination package, with two 2-L packs sold as one unit. The pouches are independent, separated by an integrated divider. “We have a multitude of different product types that go into this bag,” he notes. “These include chemicals, which are traditionally hard to contain and are hazardous, thus regulated by either the EPA, FDA, or UN. That really dictates some of the test requirements these packages have to meet.” He says the Ampac pouch is qualified for use with approximately 65 different products today, with that number continuing to rise.

Replaces previous pouch

Schultz says the single-web Ampac pouch replaced a three-web doyen-style pouch launched about seven years ago, whose original bag designed had earned a 2007 AmeriStar award. “It was a seven-mil, laminated, stand-up pouch,” he notes. “We continuously strive to improve, to optimize, and to innovate. Our Greaselift product formula caused the previous pouch plies to separate. Greaselift contains a high level of solvent and it would essentially dissolve any and all adhesives that we used to laminate those plies.

“Delamination results in a loss of pouch integrity. So we had to identify a new film structure that would not delaminate, maintain the necessary barrier properties, and be able to withstand the requirements of UN and FDA protocols.”

Ecolab sought solutions from multiple vendors before partnering again with Ampac. “We did business with them prior to this,” Schultz recalls. “When we brought them in for this application, they suggested that we use their coex structure.”

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