k 3 1 Historical Perspective and Evolution CHAPTER MENU Introduction, 3 Survey of Packaging Use, 9 Abstract This chapter covers a brief chronology of the development of packaging materials and types of packaging containers through time. The chapter goes on to survey packaging use in terms of k containment or collation of units. Following on from this is the fundamental classification of k packaging and its role in terms of providing information. The chapter then moves on to a brief description of the various types and subtypes of packaging materials. Keywords use; application; marketing; benefits; classification; identity; novel materials 1.1 Introduction 1.1.1 The Chronology of Packaging Development The use of packaging is often thought of as an industrial-age concept but this is entirely untrue. In more ancient times products of economic or nutritional value were always wrapped in a suitable material to convey the need to protect the contents. The Roman emperors and Byzantine kings frequently wrapped precious goods in all manner of materials from wovenCOPYRIGHTED rattan baskets to carved and MATERIAL gilded in-laid ebony boxes. Expen- sive luxury goods such as chalices and ceremonial goods are almost always stored in a suitable presentation case that demonstrates the value of the product contained within. Perfumes, chrism oils, and ceremonial jewellery have always been contained in sculpted and carved lidded boxes and glazed pottery. However, the use of bespoke packaging is really a modern-age phenomenon. Packaging use began with leaves and birch bark and other natural materials. In antiquity and prehistoric times humans wrapped their foods in crudely fashioned carriers and containers and also pelts and hides. The mass production of containers later involved woven materials (e.g. rushes and reeds) to create baskets Packaging Technology and Engineering: Pharmaceutical, Medical and Food Applications, First Edition. Dipak K. Sarker. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2020 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. k k 4 1 Historical Perspective and Evolution and carriers and also textiles, pottery, and bronze amphora and carved objects (e.g. ivory, antler horn, and wood). Recent estimates place ‘crude glass’ or vitrified materials and wood packaging use to at least 3000 BCE and these artefacts come from the Indus Valley civilisations and Mesopotamia. In the modern era, that is, since the early 1900s, paper and cardboard have become extremely important packaging materials. Following the invention of plastics, the emerg- ing industries making commercial packaging substituted plastic for paper as a primary packaging material. Many modern environmentalists hanker back to the times of the English Georgian and Victorian periods when forms of waxed paper were commonly used to wrap foods, such as cheese, butter, or meat, and pharmaceutical products, such as dried forms of poultices, pills (comprimés), and lozenges or oral dosage forms. A revolutionary step in packaging occurred in 1810 when Peter Durand, a British merchant, obtained a patent (UK no. 3372) for the first metal can. This can was for preservation packaging made from sheet metal to create a ‘cylindrical canister’. The actual invention of the ‘tin can’ is put down to Philippe de Girard of France, from whence the idea was taken up by Peter Durand. The idea of using hermetically sealed ‘canning’ containers, based on ab initio food preservation work in glass containers, had been proposed initially by the inventor Nicolas Appert in 1809. Appert’s outstanding work, looking at increasing the nutritional and microbiological safety of foods, pioneered sterilisation technology and glass bottle preservation. Durand went on in 1812 to sell his patent to two entrepreneurs, Bryan Donkin and John Hall, who refined the process and product. Donkin and Hall k established the world’s first commercial canning factory in Southwark Park Road, London, k UK. Unfortunately, the earliest tin cans were sealed by soldering based on a tin–lead alloy. A cumulative poisoning causing persistent ingestion did occur after a period owing to the toxic nature of the lead in the solder, which was particularly enhanced when the contents of the can were mildly acidic. As a result, a double-seamed three-piece can began to be used from 1900. In later times the lead-based solder was replaced with arc welding of the sheet ‘tinplate’. Tinplate became widely popular as it represented a stable, long-lasting, and impenetra- ble means of packaging for foods. The choice of packaging used conveys information as to the value of the product. For example, since approximately 2015 (and unchanged as of 2019), and depending on the source, glass is valued at US$0.1–0.6/kg (recovered glass US$0.02/kg), aluminium is valued at US$2–4/kg, tinplate is valued at US$0.7–1.1/kg, and higher grade paperboard is valued at US$0.3–0.6/kg; these contrast with most routine poly- olefins (cheaper plastics, such as polypropylene [PP] and polyethylene [PE]), which are valued at US$0.1–0.5/kg. Therefore, choosing glass, which is dense (2.5–3.4 times that of paper and plastic), with a prerequisite for a greater than 0.2 cm wall thickness for strength, in the modern era suggests a high-value content since glass is both expensive and heavy and, therefore, has associated increased shipping costs. For many premium products the additional cost may be deflected by the large cost of the contents. For example, the costof a can of green beans versus the cost of a bottle of champagne. In the former the can cost is approximately £0.02–0.05, whereas in the latter the bottle cost is approximately £0.50–1.00; this is because in the latter the contents cost at least 500 times more. A series of different types of pharmaceutical packaging from across a 100 year period are shown in Figure 1.1. Amber glassware represents about 30% of medicine bottles. Modern k k 1.1 Introduction 5 (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) k k (f) Figure 1.1 Packaging of the past. medicine bottles are often fabricated from polyester tinted to mimic the old-style amber glass bottles. A blue-tinted bottle is shown in the insert in Figure 1.1a. Other forms of bot- tles, such as frosted or tinted vessels, were also used across products in the past; in modern times, these are used to aid product promotion. Figure 1.1b shows all-aluminium screw-top medicine cans that were used in the past but are used much less in the modern era. These have been superseded in many respects by the push-out or ‘blister pack’ form of medicines. Figure 1.1c shows a very old cork-topped bottle and a Victorian–Edwardian steel box for pills, which are practically never seen in the modern era, except for marketing promotions. Figure 1.1 shows a range of mid-twentieth century, Edwardian, Victorian, and earlier pack- aging materials used for medicines. The containers cover green chromium glass, iron oxide amber glass, flint glass, and other common forms seen more routinely today, such aspaper- board cartons and aluminium closures. The ‘earthenware’ pottery vessel used in the past for medicine, milk, beer, and oil is rarely used in contemporary society but does find a place in speciality products as a marketing tool used to infer tradition and antiquity. Looking care- fully at the range of packaging and comparing it with that seen customarily in pharmacies, artisanal, ‘24 hour’, and mini-mart shops and supermarkets used mostly today there is a stark contrast and difference in Figure 1.1 by virtue of the absence of plastic packaging in the period before 1950 [1]. k k 6 1 Historical Perspective and Evolution 1.1.2 The Origins of Commercial Packaging Andreas Bernhardt began wrapping products in paper and waxed paper for water retention stamped with his name and identification in Germany in 1551. Packaging uses and require- ments have changed a lot in the modern era and most spectacularly over the last 150 or so years of purpose-crafted commercial containment. The diversity of past packaging can be seen in Figure 1.1, with examples of flint, amber, green, and blue glass pharmaceutical sam- ple bottles and a range of aluminium cans, paper, card, and pottery primary and secondary packaging. Some of the samples in Figure 1.1 date from the 1960s and 1970s but others date back to the Victorian and Edwardian periods (1870s–1900s). The sometimes perceived as ‘modern-era’ plastics industry actually started with John Wesley Hyatt, who invented mod- ified cellulose in 1869, and, Leo Hendrik Baekeland, who invented resinous early plastic in 1907 in the USA. Other product examples include the ubiquitous tobacco snuff box (Man- der Brothers) of the 1800s, the Beechams pills carton (UK) of the Victorian era in the 1840s, and the Lyons loose tea can (Ireland) and Laymon’s aspirin tin (USA) of the Edwardian era in the 1900s. The more familiar forms of plastic containment that first appeared in the 1950s–1970s include the detergent and – the now infamous – mass-produced carbonated drinks polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle. The tin can means of excluding air, light, and water for tea leaves is still used by many companies such as Jin Jun Mei (China), Whit- tard (UK), Tafelgut (Germany), and Twinings (UK), as part of a value-adding marketing tool and for protection of delicate flavours and volatile oils. The sea-change position of theuseof tin-plated steel (tinplate) and the tin can as a standard form of packaging will be discussed k k in Chapter 3. 1.1.3 Closures, Films, and Plastics Rubber used in sealings and liddings became a mainstay of commercial packaging when, in 1849, Charles Goodyear and Thomas Hancock developed a method that destroyed the ‘tacky–sticky’ property of the material and added extra elasticity to natural rubber.