Converting tissue into rolled products is an adhesive-intensive process. It requires a total of four adhesives: one used during core winding, a second during pickup/transfer, a third for ply bonding lamination, and a fourth seals the tail.
With greater emphasis being placed on sustainability throughout the paper industry as a whole, this reliance on adhesives has come under recent scrutiny. While an array of natural and semi-synthetic adhesives are available to make tissue converting more eco-friendly, it hasn’t fully aligned rolled tissue products and processes with sustainability initiatives.
The traditional adhesives used in bathroom tissue log production, for example, have been studied at length and found to be:
Adhesives also introduce operational inefficiencies for tissue converters. Aside from the expense — which can increase total delivered costs (TDC) by up to 2% on value/superpremium branded products in the United States — using adhesives on the production line can be problematic:
Tissue converters find themselves caught between the need for adhesives and the ecological and operational consequences of using them. It’s a complicated position to be in. It’s also compelling industry leaders such as Valmet to implement comprehensive sustainability initiatives and introduce practical, adhesive-free solutions like glueless technologies.
Valmet’s Solid and Solid+ technologies are environmentally focused compact rewinding solutions that eliminate the use of a central core. Solid produces rolls wound with no cardboard core, and Solid+ is the first toilet roll to replace the traditional inner cardboard core with an extractable mini roll.
Solid and Solid+ reduce environmental impact through:
A sustainable water lamination technology, Aquabond replaces adhesive with water during ply bonding. No new machinery is required to use this technology and neither the machine’s performance nor final product quality is compromised.
Aquabond technology is more than eco-friendly; it can be implemented directly from the HMI to simplify ply bonding, reducing the time and costs associated with embosser maintenance and cleaning.
Available for pure or recycled paper fiber, Aquabond:
The Web Tuck system allows for initial core pick-up without the use of adhesive. Production is more sustainable and cost-efficient while also less messy and wasteful.
The Tail Sealer Model 563 includes a tail-sealing solution that joins the tail to the roll using mechanics instead of adhesive. This glue-free technology:
Removing adhesives from the tissue converting process is a win for the environment, customers, and manufacturers’ bottom lines. Learn more about the versatile range of glue-free technologies and other Valmet earth-friendly solutions in Sustainability: Challenges, Strategies & Solutions for the Tissue Industry.