News

The 'Sustainable seal' project, devised by Marco Arzenton, Head of the Northeast Area Management Platform, made a striking impression in the "Little Big Innovations" initiative's environment category, our corporate project aimed at increasing social responsibility at individual and collective levels. 

The idea behind the environmental project stems from a simple numerical observation. Shrink film is an essential seal for pure, industrial and medical gas cylinders. And just considering the cylinders that the SOL Group handles in Italy, more than two million sheets are used every year. Therefore, SOL wanted to meet and pursue the challenge and concrete goal of devising a more sustainable solution for reducing plastic waste and implementing it for such large numbers.

To proceed in this direction of change, it was first necessary to carefully explore the market and the options available, teaming up with trusted suppliers to find a solution that is environmentally friendly, high-quality, and economically sustainable.

It was possible to select a different type of film by changing polymers: switching from PVC to polyester (PET) or polyolefins (PE, PP), recyclable materials manufactured from partly recycled material, which reduce environmental impact.

Subsequently, to better evaluate these alternatives technically, multiple tests were carried out that revealed no criticalities in their use. In addition, we should emphasise not only the lack of criticalities with the new materials but also their advantages:

• affordability, because of the price compared to its predecessor;

• faster thermoforming due to thinner film, which adheres faster during the operation.

For this reason, the new films are now available to the entire Group from the Central Warehouse at its Monza headquarters and can be requested via our internal platform ('Qui c’è').

The next step will be researching and implementing even more sustainable solutions, with a higher proportion of recycled product. Lastly we will work towards a transition to a biocompostable product: the study of the compatibility between our needs and the degradation times of the available materials is in progress.