Sustainably packaged without plastic

A new tying machine is saving ETERNA more than 600 kilometres of plastic tape a year.

The shirt and blouse specialist ETERNA in Passau, Germany, ships thousands of parcels every day. All of these were tied up with plastic tape, until now. Thanks to the innovative spirit of the logisticians at ETERNA, that plastic can now be dispensed with, as a new tying machine will wrap the parcels with textile straps made from recycled material.

To start with, all parcels from the online shop will be tied using the textile straps; later, shipping to B2B customers will be changed over as well. This will allow ETERNA to save more than 600 kilometres of plastic tape every year. The tying machine from the manufacturer Siebeck automatically recognises all packaging sizes and winds the textile strap around at just the right tightness before knotting it in place.

In a few weeks, the bought-in textile strap made from recycled cord remnants will be replaced by strapping made from ETERNA's own textile scraps. Cuts of shirt fabric left over from production will be made into cords especially for ETERNA. They are currently under development and still need to be adjusted to the perfect elasticity and thickness for the machine. According to the machine manufacturer Siebeck, ETERNA is currently the only customer who wants to equip the machine with cord made from its own textile scraps.