To help them stay at the forefront of their industry, Elite Plastics have invested in a bespoke 3 layer co-extrusion blown film line from Italian designer and manufacturer of complete extrusions line for packaging and converting, Bandera. See it in action above!
Elite Plastics are one of the UK’s leading extruders of polythene, with a reputation for keeping up with the significant advancement and innovation in polymer technologies. Their research and development has enabled them to create ‘recipes’ that enable them to manufacture cutting-edge polythene films for multiple industries.
The Bandera Blown Film line has been developed to utilise at least 30% recycled content into the film recipe, whilst still maintaining the technical characteristics Elite’s customers demand. It features a compact and functional layout providing Elite with maximum flexibility for a variety of applications. It also has a flexo printing facility.
Josh Salmon, Commercial Director at Elite Plastics says “Bandera is among the world leaders in building complete blown film lines, their company started in 1947, and with this heritage comes decades of experience and expertise. They utilise the latest technologies to produce lines that will allow us to drive forward technical innovation in the film market. We asked Bandera to propose a state-of-the-art line for Elite Plastics and Bandera met the brief perfectly.”
It has been a long process for Elite Plastics to get to the point of commissioning this state-of-the-art line. The site had to be prepared and crucially the roof had to be raised to provide the required height. Additionally, Elite has taken the opportunity to install a large Solar PV system on the roofs of both their extrusion halls, which forms part of Elite’s Net Zero Strategy. It means that the film produced on the brand new Bandera line and their other lines will have been made partially utilising solar power, reducing the carbon footprint of their products.
Despite the large amount of work, Josh Salmon is confident that the result will be well worth the investment. “We will be extruding products like shrink films, high-performance films, form fill and seal films, lamination films, and other technical films using LDPE, LLDPE, EVA, MDPE, MLLDPE, etc.” he explains.
The project has been supported in the UK by the team at UK Extrusion who are agents for Bandera, and provide UK-based engineers to support Bandera installations and continued service. A bonus when travel becomes more and more expensive and sometimes unreliable. UK Extrusion is renowned for its relationships with its clients and this particular project has highlighted the effort they devote to each customer. Josh Salmon describes the relationship between the two companies as “more of a partnership than a customer/supplier relationship.” Speaking about the commissioning he says “This has been fantastic as our engineering team has built the line, which has been a remarkable internal project, with support and communication from Bandera and UK Extrusion when needed at different phases. The engineers are now on-site completing final mechanical checks before we put power to the line and start all the electrical checks. We will then start running tests of the new line. The whole team are very excited to start running wet tests. We expect to be in full production at the beginning shortly.”
Steve Trainor, managing director of UK Extrusion comments “We always look on each project as a partnership with our client, and in this particular instance it could be seen as akin to a marriage. Josh and I have some colourful conversations, but behind the humour are two people who respect one another’s abilities and goals. It has been a pleasure for our team to work with Elite Plastics and we are very excited to see the first film coming off the new line.”