Glossary of Terms
Double poly coated board, sometimes called
PE coated board
The PE stand s for polyethylene, a oil based plastic, that is applied to the paper board at the paper mill.
PE board is used extensively for juice, milk cartons, yogurt pots, cream pots and ice cream containers, as well as hot and cold cups.
The PE coating is essential part of a paper cup, as at the seams, heat and pressure is applied, that causes the PE coating to melt, and then weld the cup together, giving a waterproof joint.
The pe coating is only a few microns think, so represents a very small proportion of the total weight of the cup.
Hot cups are normally only single PE coated i.e. only on the inside, but cold cups would be double poly coated, i.e. coated on the inside and the outside, this is to prevent condensation soaking into the board, and making the cup soggy and losing its rigidity.
PE coated board replaced wax coatings, and
clay coated boards
Wax coated cups
The paper cup was glued together, and then was sprayed with wax to waterproof cups, the colder the cup was in use, the more rigid it became.
This process was not ideal, as wax detracted from design on cup, people could scrape wax off with their finger nail, factory waste from this process had to go to land fill, it was also very dangerous in production, as workers were dealing with molten wax, that could be a fire risk.
Clay Coated cups
These were for hot drinks, were wax coated boards would have been no good as they would have melted, the cup was glued together, a small amount of clay would be put in the cup, and spun at high speed so that it covered the inside wall of the cup, waterproofing the service, this was not ideal, as when serving hot drinks, customers would say tea tasted of cardboard, also cups would become soggy quite quickly.
The Waste Heirachy
Refers to the three R's. reduce, reuse and recycle in order of
importance. The aim of the waste hierarchy is to extract the maximum
practical
benefits from products and to generate the minimum amount of waste.