Reusing plastic film cores sent back from customer to packaging manufacturer
Hi all,
one of my company's customers have asked recently about reusing a plastic cores. The path would be:
films on plastic cores sent from my company -> packing of food at customer's site -> sending back used cores to my company to reuse.
And now what? My company manufactures generally flexible materials for food.
For me returned plastic cores may be contaminated with anything on their surface as I do not know the exact type of production of our customer, handling at customer's site before sending back to us, way of transporting to our company. So many questions and I think it poses a serious risk of spreading the contamination to our products for example through operators.
Do you have any experience with such process?
In my opinion my company should assure the cleanliness of returned plastic cores before they reach production area, like washing and checking the cleanliness.
I'd be very grateful for any help.
Hi Pawel; Are you talking about microbial contamination? Then, it could be neglectable as bacteria don't grow on dry surfaces. However, those returned cores might be dirty, that's the possibility.
They had an out building on the property where the cores were washed down and sanitized and then tested.
Frankly unless you are doing a large volume on this I would not wanr to handle the risks involved.
Hi Pawel; Are you talking about microbial contamination? Then, it could be neglectable as bacteria don't grow on dry surfaces. However, those returned cores might be dirty, that's the possibility.
Hi olenazh,
actually I'm afraid of microbial or chemical contamination. Microbial, because I assume that there might be some traces of substances from meat/fish that could allow the growth of bacteria. Chemical because they may have contact with anything before and during transport depending on the awareness of people who have contact with them.
Agree with SQFConsultant: I wouldn't take any chances.
I had a packaging company that customers rerurned the cores... but not directly to the packaging building.
They had an out building on the property where the cores were washed down and sanitized and then tested.
Frankly unless you are doing a large volume on this I would not wanr to handle the risks involved.
Thanks. Unfortunately they are not significant amounts which means that the risk may be high comparing to advantages. :(
We have a similar process where we return "layer sheets" used as dividers for food cans that don't have further processing. Layer sheets are returned to the can manufacturer. They have in place a process for inspecting these layer sheets. Any that are excessively dirty/damaged etc are rejected. Any that have passed are returned to manufacturing for reuse. Depending on how the film is processed and the cores are handled once the film is used they could potentially be re-used. You would need to do a risk assessment.
You could have your customer check the roll cores for micro contamination before returning them. How much film is left on the roll when changing over a roll? In our process typically the last few meters are rejected from the process and the old film is joined to the new film and pulled through the filler so risk of contamination from the film that is in contact with the roll is negligible as that part of the film is not used in the process, just used to feed the new film through.
As noted above packaging films are dry, the cores are also unlikely to support microbial growth, but you'd need to check to confirm. Review how the manufacturer is using your film and their process to see what risk may be present there.
Are we talking about cores or core plugs? Never have come across plastic cores yet. My experience has been that cores have a negligible risk. To my knowledge in the industry, you aren't running film straight to the core. You are stopping a couple layers before so that you can splice and not have any issues on your machine. Thus, even though the film is in contact with the core, you are never really using the part of the film that comes in contact with the core. Therefore, the core is a very low risk. Just my thought. Basically you need to risk assess and be able to justify what you find and what you do based on that assessment.
If the benefits are big enough you could do a risk analysis and validation.
Think about sanitation, chemical contamination, checking for damages and your rejection process.
And see if your customers have any clauses which prevent this practice.