Reduce, reuse and recycle: Industrie Chimiche Forestali’s new invention lives up to the cornerstones of ecological culture
Guido Cami Ceo of ICF Industrie Chimiche Forestali
Industrie Chimiche Forestali’s commitment to sustainability is no news, but today it goes a step forward thanks to the presentation of a revolutionary container for water based adhesives. Container’s revolution: and its evolution too, as the name itself suggests. The question that led the Marcallo con Casone based company to action is simple, but the answer is not trivial: how can you send water based adhesives to customers in an easy, affordable and sustainable way?
Once there were IBCs, then the company switched to a bag-in-box system, a choice that brought benefits in terms of eliminating the air interference and replacing plastic with cardboard, a less impacting material (but one that still needs to be disposed of). A big limitation of the bag-in-box system is the dimensional one: it’s difficult to go over 5 kilos, bags become difficult to manage, this small size therefore leads to a greater quantity of material to be disposed of (as well as constant changes during production).
Here comes Forestali’s intuition. “We found a group of ‘smart’ guys who patented an interesting system that was in its industrialization phase, we made a deal with them and we supported them financially to help them complete the design process” Forestali’s CEO Guido Cami said. The result is ContaineRevolution: a container which is made up of a sturdy PVC casing that houses inside a 50 or 100 kilos trilaminate bag filled with adhesive. Forestali fills the bag and sends the container to the customer, in addition to providing the equipment needed to handle this “keg”, a trolley that allows the container to be brought directly next to the machine. Compressed air is attached to the container, a 0.4 bar reducer and up to two guns can be hooked simultaneously.
The advantages of this new system are manifold, starting from the insulation of the product and its total isolation from air: the air that is introduced remains between the trilaminate bag and the outer shell, the content therefore remains sterile. And continuing with the possibility to reuse it: once the adhesive is finished, the customer can take out the bag from the container, let it dry and dispose of it, or send the container back to Forestali who will refill it with a new bag full of adhesive. The expected duration, based on the tests carried out by the company, is over 30 cycles: a nice advantage in terms of waste disposal.
The ContaineRevolution can compressed, stacked and reuse
And that’s not all: once empty, the container can be compressed and stacked, weighs less than 5 kilos and occupies a third of the space compared to a full container. It is easy to see the beneficial impact on transports.
Forestali is busy studying an acessory kit to make the transition to this new system simple and easy for its customers, the intent is to provide a turnkey product. Innovative, practical and sustainable.
www.forestali.it
www.icfgroupspa.it