Summary
The challenge
As the world’s largest take-out market, China is estimated to have generated over 1.6 million tons of plastic waste in 20201. With the Chinese government pledging to ban the use of single-use plastic by 2025, packaging producers need to find new materials to use.
The solution
Packaging producer FirstPak is using ABB robots to help produce and dispatch its range of degradable take-out packaging. Delivering fast, accurate and reliable performance, the robots have helped to transform production line efficiency by 100%, with the reduction of energy costs up to 30%.
The application
A fleet of 200 ABB robots are used to handle various operations throughout the packaging production line, including material handling, picking and palletizing.
The problem of plastic waste generated by the rapid growth of the take-out catering industry both in China and globally is placing an urgent need to reduce the use of single use plastic to achieve carbon peaking and neutrality goals and accelerate sustainable development. In China, the issue is being tackled by the introduction of regulations that will ban the use of single-use plastic by 2025.
To help meet these regulations, and reduce the take-out industry’s environmental footprint, Chinese packaging producer FirstPak is working with ABB to automate the production of a new generation of degradable packaging material made from agricultural waste.
Founded in 2018, FirstPak takes advantage of the abundant and high concentration of sugarcane industry resources in Guangxi Province to produce degradable packaging materials by recycling the fibrous pulp, known as bagasse, that remains after sugarcane stalks are crushed to extract their juice. Bagasse is commonly used as a material in the production of recycled products, helping manufacturers to find new ways to minimize environmental impact.
FirstPak’s Laibin plant handles around 40,000 tons of sugarcane pulp every year, with 35,000 tons are turned into finished products. FirstPak uses the bagasse to produce various alternatives to single use plastic packaging commonly used in take-out.
ABB has provided more than 200 high performance robots for material handling, picking and palletizing. Through their superior speed, stability and precision, the robots are helping FirstPak to significantly improve its productivity.
“Using ABB’s robots for loading and unloading, rapid sorting and palletizing of wet press has helped us achieve faster, more stable and accurate performance that has delivered benefits throughout the production line,” said Jiahui Xu, Vice President of FirstPak. “Since using the robots, production line efficiency has increased by 100%, while our energy costs have been reduced by 30%.”
A key benefit of the robots has been their ability to handle FirstPak’s wide range of products, which includes paper bowls, paper plates, paper lunch boxes and other containers used in take-out.
With their ability to be reprogrammed to perform a wide range of tasks, the ABB robots installed at FirstPak can handle various stages of the production process. This flexibility also allows the production of customized packaging solutions which can be tailored to meet specific customer needs.
The degradable paper-plastic industry has a huge market potential, with the market projected to grow by 6% between 2023 and 2032 to around $814bn. As a means of producing degradable packaging quickly, efficiently and with minimal waste, the collaboration between ABB and FirstPak can play a major role in developing the circular economy and realizing the goal of sustainable low-carbon production both in China and worldwide.
The success of the project has led FirstPak to look for other opportunities to broaden its production operation.
“We plan to build another production base to expand capacity,” said Xu Zhu, Production and Technology Manager at FirstPak. “We hope to further cooperate with ABB and jointly move towards a greener future of sustainable and high-quality development.”
References:
Mapping the environmental impacts and policy effectiveness of takeaway food industry in China - Yuting Zhang, Zongguo Wen, 2022 - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969721070996
