Package and method of manufacturing package

Technical field of the invention

The present invention relates to a package intended for liquid material, which package comprises an inner container made of flexible material arranged in an outer casing made of rigid material, said package being easily recyclable.

Background

Packages comprising an outer casing which surrounds an inner container containing a liquid, such as wine packages of the "bag-in-tube" or "bag-in- box" type, are used in large amounts today. Due to the material of which the package is made, these packages are easy to handle and transport. Further, it is easy to personify packages since the material can be provided with a print in a simple way. The outer casing can be mass produced from for example board, paper or laminates, and the inner container can be produced from plastic or a plastic laminate containing a metal foil.

However, the problem with such packages of today is that consumers consider them to be difficult to recycle. The box-construction, which comprises a cylindrical casing, must first be broken before the inner package of flexible material can be removed from the outer casing. Thereafter, the inner container and the outer casing are separately recycled at a recycling station. The breaking of the outer casing is often time consuming and is seen as inconvenient, since, for example, the glued seam of the casing must be manually broken or the casing must be cut into pieces or be broken in another way. Some packages may comprise details of plastic material or metal, which are difficult to separate from casing. Some consumers may then choose to discard the package directly into combustible waste, and the package is consequently not recycled. Another common problem is that the packages are sorted in a wrong way and are discarded as a whole among for

example paper board recycling. This causes problems in later stages of the handling of recycled material. Casings made of board, which still enclose the inner container of for example plastic, cannot be used as recycled board by a paper mill since they can cause severe disturbances in the process of manufacture of board or paper. This means that paper and board from recycling stations must both be manually sorted up and checked or the entire amount of collected board must be incinerated, because the collected material is not "pure". Another problem caused in recycling stations is that packages that have not been broken up take up a lot of space in a recycling container, which becomes quickly full.

There is a desire to provide bag-inbox packages which are easy to manufacture and which are also easy to separate at recycling so that all different materials can be separated from each other. US 5,203,470 discloses a separable bag-in-box container. The separation of the inner bag from the outer box is enabled by the use of an opening flap in the side wall panel of the outer carton. This solution is useful only when the entire outer casing is made of one material.

Therefore, there is still a great need to provide a package of the type bag-inbox type, which is intended for liquid material, and comprises an inner container of flexible material arranged in an outer casing of rigid material, which package is easy to recycle and which is stable and attractive while still being easy to manufacture, handle and transport.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a package for liquid material which comprises an inner container of flexible material arranged in an outer casing of rigid material, which is easier to recycle than hitherto known packages of similar type.

It is a further object of the invention to provide a package of the above- mentioned type that is easy to break, but in which the risk of breakage is small during manufacture, transport and handling of the package.

Another object of the invention is to provide a simple and economical method for manufacture of a recyclable package of this type.

Detailed description of the invention

Further problems have arisen with bag-in-tube packages. Such packages comprise a bottom and a lid of hard material which are fixed to a cylindrical body. To provide sufficiently stabile package, the bottom and the lid are fixed to the cylindrical body in a hard way and it is nearly impossible to separate the lid and the bottom from the cylindrical body without the use of some kind of instrument.

The above objects can be achieved by the present invention by providing a package which comprises a cylindrical outer casing provided with a separate lid and a separate bottom, which provide and improve the stability of the package.

Further, the outer casing of the package is provided with at least one perforation which weakens the rigid material of the casing, when an external force is applied in a certain spot and a certain angle.

The rigid material for the casing may be any known material suitable for use as a package material, such as different kinds of fibre material, different kinds of board, laminates, plastics and/or metals. The casing is preferably made of one or several layers of paper board, such that a desirable thickness and rigidness of the casing is achieved. The layers are attached to each other so as to provide a paper board in a known manner. The casing may have any cross-sectional shape; circle, oval, rectangular or quadrangle. A circular or

oval cross-section is particularly strong since there are no corners in the casing that may form weak points. Rectangular or quadrangular cross- sections allow more effective transport as they do not leave empty space when stacked.

When the casing is made of paper board it may be manufactured e.g. by winding spirally the board, gluing, and finally cutting into desired lengths. A cylindrical or oval casing which is manufactured by helical winding is very strong. It is also possible to form the package from a pattern on a sheet or web of paper board. All these processes per se are well known in the art and are therefore not described in more detail in this context.

The casing is provided with a lid and/or a bottom of hard material which functions to further stabilize the casing. The hard material lid and bottom can take up forces acting from a direction substantially perpendicular to the casing wall, without being deformed. The hard material may be any suitable material, such as metal, plastic or fiber-based materials, such as paper, board or laminates of different kinds. The lid and the bottom are firmly attached to the casing so that a stable construction of the casing can be provided. This can be done for example by gluing and/or by forming the edge of the lid or bottom such that it is firmly bent over the edges of the casing. The joint between the casing cylinder and the lid or bottom must be strong enough to hold the weight of the package and its container, to avoid that the lid or bottom comes off when the package is handled during transport and use by a consumer. The joint should preferably withstand a force which corresponds to at least 1.5 times the weight of the filled package. This is particularly the case when a lifting handle is arranged in the lid. The lid and/or the bottom do not both have to be attached to the casing in the same manner; i.e. for example the bottom can be less firmly attached to the casing than the lid or vice versa depending on the overall construction of the package. The lid and bottom thus attached to the casing cylinder are

securely affixed in the package. The joint is strong in the axial direction of casing cylinder and quite weak in the radial direction.

The casing material is perforated in such a way that the casing will become easy to break when desired and when the perforation is subjected to external and intentional pressure from a direction more or less perpendicular to the surface of the casing. The perforations are preferably placed in the proximity of the bottom and/or the lid near the edges of the casing. In this way the separation of the bottom and lid from the casing are further simplified, because the casing cylinder is broken up and the lid and the bottom can be teared off from the casing. The perforation should not weaken the casing to an extent that it breaks when handled or transported in a normal manner. Therefore, there should preferably be a small distance between the end of the perforation and the edge of the cylinder, thereby ensuring good stability of the package as well as easy separation of the lid and bottom from the casing cylinder. The distance between the edge of the casing cylinder and the perforation may be for example about 0,5 to about 2,5 cm. The package must resist any external pressure that it might be subjected to during normal handling. The perforation can be adapted to the material or appearance of the package. A more rigid material would, for instance, require a larger perforated area than a thinner and more flexible material. The perforation is suitably formed as a straight line in the longitudinal direction of the casing cylinder. The perforation may extend along the entire casing cylinder, but preferably there is a perforated line placed at each end of the casing cylinder in order to obtain increase in strength of the package. A perforated line having a length of about 2 to about 8 cm, depending on the height of the casing cylinder, arranged at each end of the casing cylinder in the proximity of the lid and bottom is normally enough to tear open the casing cylinder.

A perforated line in the longitudinal direction may be supplemented with a perforated line substantially perpendicular to the longitudinal direction at one or both ends. Thereby, the package will be even easier to tear open.

When the package is ready for disposal, the perforation of the outer casing is pressed towards the inner flexible container, and the edges of the perforation can be forced away from each other so as to tear open the casing cylinder. At the same time the casing cylinder edge is ripped off from the lid and bottom. When the rigid cylinder is broken, the lid and the bottom of the casing can be removed from the cylinder in an easier manner. The package is thereby broken and also the inner container can be easily separated from the outer casing. Another advantage with the perforation is that the casing can be flattened and thereby requires less space in containers for recycling. A package of this type can be easily manufactured in existing devices for manufacture of packages. The invention provides a simple and cost effective solution for a more easily recyclable package, since all components made from different materials can easily be separated from each other. Hence, the lid, the bottom, the cylinder and the flexible inner container can all be separated and recycled as desired.

Additional advantages, features and possibilities of use will become apparent in the following description of the invention in relation to drawings, which illustrate examples of embodiments of the invention.

Figure 1 shows an embodiment of a circular cylindrical casing having a perforation according to the invention.

Figure 2 shows an embodiment of a circular cylindrical casing having a perforation according to the invention.

Figure 3 shows an embodiment of a casing in the form of a straight cylinder or rectangular parallelepiped with a perforation according to the invention.

Figure 4 shows an embodiment of a casing in the form of a straight cylinder or rectangular parallelepiped with a perforation according to the invention.

In Figure 1 a package according to the present invention is shown which is intended for liquid material. The package 1 comprises an inner container (not shown in the figures) made of flexible material, such as plastics, foil or laminate, for example metallised plastic laminate etc.. The laminate can for example comprise a barrier layer made of ethylene vinyl alcohol (EVOH). The inner container preferably includes a tapping arrangement for the liquid material, which may be e.g. a beverage.

The inner container is arranged inside an outer cylindrical casing 2 made of rigid material. The rigid material can be for example paper, paper board or a laminate, comprising plastics and/or metal, but also other materials with similar properties can be used. The outer casing 2 is preferably a cylinder which may be circular or a rectangular parallelepiped, i.e. a straight cylinder. The outer casing 2 includes a perforated portion 3 which is removable, and the removal of this perforated portion provides for an opening. The tapping arrangement of the inner container is accessible through the opening and can be pulled out through the opening. In Figure 1 , the casing is circular cylindrical and also comprises a lid 4 and a bottom 5 of hard material, such as, but not limited to, rigid plastic, e.g. polyvinyl chloride, polyethene, polypropylene or similar, or metal, such as aluminium, or a fiber-based material such as paper board, or different kinds of laminates. The inner container is enclosed inside the outer casing 2 by means of the lids 4, 5 while the lids 4, 5 further improve the stability and attractive construction of the casing. When the outer casing 2 is provided with perforation/perforations 6 according the present invention, which will be described more in detail below, the lid 4 and/or bottom 5 can easily be removed from the outer casing 2 and recycled separately for example as plastic or metal, depending on the material of the lid 4 and/or bottom 5.

To be able to break the outer casing 2 in an easier manner, the casing 2 is provided with at least one longitudinal perforation 6 along the wall of the

casing 2. When the perforation 6 is exposed to external pressure, for example by manually pressing the perforation 6 downwards towards the inner container, the outer casing 2 is broken and the inner container can be easily removed from the outer casing 2 and the bottom 5 and the lid 4 can be removed from the outer casing 2 and the outer casing 2 can be further flattened to decrease the volume of the package 1 while recycling the package 1. The perforation 6 can have different lengths depending among other things on the material and form of the outer casing 2. The length and the depth of the perforation can be adjusted such that the package 1 does not break spontaneously when handling the package. However, the perforation 6 should be long enough to enable an easy breakage of the package, or alternatively, the package 1 should be provided with more than one perforation. For example, the outer casing 2 can be provided with two or more perforations near the edges of the outer casing 2, for example where the lid 4 and the bottom 5 are located. The perforations 6 may form a T- formed perforation, a cross-formed perforation, etc. which facilitate the removal of the bottom 5 and the lid 4 from the casing 2. The length of the perforation can vary within 10 to 100% of the length or height of the wall and is preferably between 30 and 80% of the length of the wall. The depth of the perforation can vary between 10 and 100% of the thickness of the material and is preferably between 50 and 100% of the depth of the material. The perforation may have a form of a dashed line, but also other suitable forms are possible, such as for example round holes, zigzag form, dot lines etc. The perforation 6 can be placed vertically, horizontally or diagonally on the casing. In Figure 2 a diagonal placement of the perforation 6 is shown.

In one preferred embodiment of the invention the perforation 6 is placed in a seam in which the edges of a sheet that form the cylinder, for example a circular cylinder or a rectangular parallelepiped, have been joined together. In the seam, the parts or edges of the material of the package overlap each other and these parts are joined to each other for example by means of adhesive or staples. The advantage attained with placing the perforation in

the seam is that the package will become easier to break since the seam is often reinforced due to the double rigid material of the package and the adhesive. One further advantage is that the package will become more aesthetically attractive when the perforation is placed on an area where no print is located.

As already mentioned above, the casing can also be provided with several longitudinal perforations 6 to make it further easier to remove the lid 4 and the bottom 5 and to flatten the casing 2. These perforations 6 may also be placed for example of the bottom and/or on the top of the casing 2 as shown in figure 4.

The present invention relates also to a method of manufacturing an outer casing 2 for a package 1 which comprises an inner container of flexible material and which is arranged inside the outer casing 2 of rigid material. The inner container comprises a device for tapping the liquid material and the casing 2 comprises a perforated portion 3 which is removable and whereby an opening is provided through which the tapping device of the inner container becomes available and can be pulled out through the opening. During the manufacturing, at least one side wall of the casing is provided with a perforation 6 made with a perforation device, which perforation devices are well known in the art.

The outer casing 2 may be produced in conventional packing devices which are well known in the technical area and which are therefore are not described in more detail. The packing device may comprise several units, among others a unit for unwinding and uniting one or several webs of packing material, for example a unit for spirally winding and gluing the outer casing 2, a unit for cutting the material into desired form, a unit for uniting the package material for example by gluing, a unit for attaching a possible label or a print and one or several units for perforation of the package. This unit comprises a perforation device which may be for example a knife or similar

which can perforate the rigid material. The inner container containing the liquid material can be placed inside the casing 2 manually or automatically. The outer casing 2 is then closed by gluing or by placing one or several lids. The upper side of the package 1 or the lid 4 may be provided with a handle.

The invention is not limited to the above described embodiments but can vary within the scope of the appended claims.