Several industry leaders have been working and combining their well-founded expertise to economically produce thin-walled containers using top-quality recycled material and with maximum output.

Arburg’s subsidiary in France has teamed up with Collomb, a mold maker specializing in thin-walled containers, Pagès Group, a robotics expert for packaging, Verstraete, an IML label manufacturer, Koch-Technik, a material flow specialist, and Borealis, a raw materials supplier, to present Thin Wall Integra as a new one-stop shop concept for the production of thin-walled five-liter buckets.

Fully automated injection moulding cell around a hybrid Allrounder 720 H in packaging version.

The jointly developed concept is based on a fully automated injection molding cell around a hybrid Allrounder 720 H in packaging version with a 1-cavity mold. The complete cycle only takes around five seconds.

In addition to the injection molding machine optimized for fast cycles, the sequentially operating robotic system is also a very good performer. The handling system with telescopic arm that engages from the rear side of the machine first loads the mold with the IML labels.

The robotic system then removes the labeled buckets and stacks them on a deposit mat. The stacks are then automatically picked up by a robot for palletizing. The two robot technologies used make the system particularly compact. The recyclate is continuously fed in via an automatic conveyor system.

The ‘ecological design’ enables material savings of up to 35%.

In addition, the joint project is in line with the ecological aspects of plastics processing that are so important today. The product has a proportion of 55 per cent recycled material, and its ‘ecological design’ enables material savings of up to 35 per cent. Added to this are the simplified stackability of the buckets and the use of ‘HolyGrail 2.0’ labels, which make it easy to recycle the materials used by type.

The fully automated project system is specifically designed for high-performance packaging applications that require speed, precision and efficiency, as well as ease of maintenance. After its premiere on 30 November, the Thin Wall Integra project was also on show during an open day at Collomb in Oyonnax.