Sealed Air would like nothing more than to sell less packaging material to its customers. That may seems counterintuitive, but Sealed Air, which makes not only packaging materials but also equipment, wants to use its knowledge to help its customers take waste out of their supply chain through such efforts as "rightsizing" their packaging and making their packaging more sustainable.

The company was displaying several of their products that help with those efforts at the Modex trade show in Atlanta.

Here are just a few:

• The e-Cube void reduction system automatically cuts down boxes so that they are the right size for the products that they are containing. This reduces the need for packaging fill material. The box travels through a tunnel, sensors detect how full the box is, and then the box is scored to that height. Finally the machine folds the flaps down.
• With its data-driven packaging design service, Sealed Air can scan a product and create a mold for a foam cushion that conforms to the product. Then it will run algorithms and models to see how much foam can be taken out of this foam packaging without impacting the product's damage rates. This ensures that the company is not using an excessive amount of packaging material.
• Bubble Wrap IB is a version of Sealed Air's Bubble Wrap packaging material that can be inflated on demand by an inflating machine at a customer's site. Because the film is shipped uninflated, one pallet of that inflatable film is equal to shipping 90 bundles of already inflated Bubble Wrap. Using this solution can greatly reduce a company's freight costs and carbon footprint.

For more information, see the Sealed Air website.