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Italian technology plast / April 2024 |
Numerous Italian and international operators participated in the Open House
all , an important contribution to the company turnover is coming from North America and a unified action could not be postponed . Just for example , Santini recalls , „ in the agricultural sector alone , there are customers who have installed as many as eight of our lines in their factories while as far as packaging is concerned , we have been selling lines for five years now . With this service we will be able to guarantee a higher level of assistance covering our entire portfolio , also considering the various projects we started involving sheets . Everything is coordinated by the US general manager , Mattia Gambarotto , who in addition to the engineer teams has two local salesmen .”
THE MARKET , IN ITALY AND ABROAD The current market situation , including Italy ’ s , allows positive outlooks for the future despite a fairly complex general scenario . The first quarter of 2024 seems to be oriented to encouraging results for Bandera and although 2025 still looks uncertain , the company counts a lot on the probable boost deriving from the new Industry 5.0 scheme : „ It is useless to continue complaining ,“ Santini comments , „ but the European Union is tackling the problem from the wrong side : plastic is demonised
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because it is a material that floats , as opposed to glass and iron , while materials that have an even greater impact on the environment are not considered . More efforts should have been made on separate collection and on the management of end products in order to obtain better results . On the other hand , too much attention has been dedicated , for example , to paper , a material that is not as easily recyclable as plastic since it requires more energy and more washing steps , involving an enormous waste of water . The only real advantage of paper is that if you throw it on the ground after a while you don ‘ t see it anymore even though all the chemicals inside it are absorbed by – and pollute – the soil , as demonstrated by the problems recently emerged in Lombardy regarding drinking water .” The paper used for containers and packaging entails the additional problem of release and leaks , as anyone can verify when drinking a coffee that changes taste in the classic cardboard cup or when carrying home bulk fatty foods wrapped in paper , with obvious leaks on the outside . Not to mention that , to hot seal paper , it is necessary to use plastic , so much so that Bandera itself supplies many OEMs for this purpose with its own hot sealing system intended for extrusion lines for paper applications .
THE IMPACT OF REGULATION An important signal , however , comes from the last European Council , which extended the use
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of single-use plastic products , such as trays , which we will therefore still see in supermarkets : „ A more careful control in the recovery of plastic with more selective separate collection systems would be enough , perhaps thanks to special separate collection containers at supermarkets with shopping vouchers or deposit in exchange : the great majority of people would adapt over time , as it happened with municipal separate collection after the initial complaints . Plastic remains not only useful but I would say indispensable and irreplaceable . Aggressive regulation risks setting us back 50 years in terms of technological advancement : just think of the benefits of plastic in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry . Moreover , this is the material that allowed us to get to the Moon , as well as to produce batteries for electric cars : among the many OEMs we work with , and which now account for 15 % of our turnover , there are also those who make these products and ask us to supply machines for introducing more plastic parts in order to separate the various components . In addition , the use of paper negatively affects shelf life and the production costs , forcing the price of the final product to increase with inferior results in terms of shelf life and tightness .” Bandera ‘ s global expansion , in any case , continues interruptedly . Gorla assures : “ Thanks to constant participation in the major trade fairs in the sector - starting with those scheduled in the USA and China , where we have an office in Shanghai - , as well as at least twenty annual events and conferences all over the world .” |
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