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Packaging is necessary in a world dominated by marketing-based economies, which rely on it for the safe delivery of profitable products. It is different from many other functions because packaging has two faces and each face demands a special marketing approach. Also necessary to appreciate is that in the very marketing of all products packaging plays a vital part, yet it is still often treated as a necessary evil and is often used on an expediency basis by product manufacturers. Even the packaging manufacturers themselves still fall into the trap of providing what is asked for instead of designing what is really needed. To describe packaging as in a world of its own is no pretension, for wherever natural or manufactured products are produced, packaging is needed to contain, preserve and protect them in the journey to the market place. Food, drink, clothing, light engineering goods, china and glass, medicines and household chemicals—in all those industries it is packaging made of paper and board, glass, plastic and metal that serves them. The importance of properly designed packaging lies in the fact that it must meet the need for protection of the product from the hazards of damage and deterioration. At the same time it must also provide identification and attractive presentation and meet the appropriate environmental criteria, Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The importance of packaging in the fields of medicines and healthcare generally is reflected in the expenditure in these area. The steady growth in expenditure on health care is due largely to the increase in standards of living which has resulted in an increase in the number of older people with greater needs for medical care. As a proportion of the Gross National Product expenditure on health care reached 10% in the USA, 8% in Europe and some 6% in Japan in recent times. Table 10.1 gives some data on the value of the markets for medical packaging in the USA.

The substances used in medicine for the treatment of disease (and loosely referred to as ‘drugs’) take many forms and are of diverse origin [1]. As Ross [1] pointed out the derivation of the word drug is unknown but originally it meant a simple medicinal substance, mostly of vegetable origin, such as witch-hazel leaves, dandelion root and camomile flowers, but it also included such potent poisons as belladonna (deadly nightshade), aconite (monkshood) and opium.

Tamper evidence has been defined in the USA as the degree to which tampering is apparent to the observer.

The choice of packaging for any specific pharmaceutical product is dependent on the following principal factors: • the nature of the product itself — its chemical activity, moisture sensitivity, effect of oxygen and its compatibility with possible packaging materials • the type of patient — e.g. child, elderly adult, male or female, ethnic origin • the form of the dose — free flowing granules, aqueous solution, cream, ointment, inhalation, etc. method and site of administering the medication — oral, topical, parenteral, ear, eye, nose, skin, etc. Whether a dispensing device is to be used, e.g. syringe, dropper, etc. method of distribution — ethical through pharmacies and hospitals, or OTC through retail outlets capacity of the packaging needed — small bulk for pharmacies, OPD, unit dose, etc. required shelf life and likely sales areas.

Pharmaceuticals require more detailed packaging than do other sensitive products, such as foods, although there are several similarities in their requirements. Almost every type of modern packaging is used for the wide range of medications and devices now available, but the quantities involved are usually smaller than with foods. Security and integrity of the package are, however, more important and are controlled by licensing arrangements.

Child-resistant (CR) packaging, called Poison Prevention Packaging (PPP) in the USA, may be defined as a packaging that makes access to the contents by children under 5 years of age difficult, while permitting adults to have access to the contents. The contents in question are substances such as drugs, cleaning agents, pesticides and other poisonous materials. All medicines are potentially dangerous if children, who are naturally inquisitive, gain access to them. Consequently, steps have to be taken to prevent this. Obviously, all medication is best kept out of reach of children, preferably under lock and key, and to this end public education of parents and other adults has been attempted but it can never be completely effective. Nevertheless, proper labelling and information is important to the safe use of medicines. The Euro label for medicines (Figure 8.1) was devised for that purpose.

The packaging of pharmaceuticals is inevitably conservative and because of this new developments tend to originate in other areas and then develop into the fields of medicine. Specialised packages for pharmaceutical products are somewhat slow to develop and tend to be associated with new methods of administering drugs or such specific trends as the unit dose form or methods of bettering compliance.

In the past when food was scarce man survived by developing methods of preserving foods, such as fermentation to prevent spoilage during storage. Nowadays society is even more dependent upon stored foods and it is estimated that in the UK alone the cost of food losses due to spoilage is more than £100 million per year [1, 2].

It has been said that ‘a bottle or jar is only as good as its closure’; but this is only part of the story, since a good seal is the outcome of a cooperative effort between the finish of the bottle or jar and its closure.

Whenever applicable for distribution and storage it is advantageous to handle goods mechanically rather than manually and to group a number of items into a single larger unit for mechanical handling. Broadly speaking, these Unit Load Concepts have been applied for centuries—ever since man started unitizing items onto a base and using a windlass to lift them. Awareness of the value of aids of this type in modern distribution systems started with the development of pallets and fork-lift trucks in World War II.

Collapsible tubes are flexible composite containers for the storage and dispensing of product formulations that usually have a pasty consistency. They may be made of metal or thermoplastic.

Wooden casks and plywood kegs include three main types of construction: 1. Wet cooperage: intended for the transport of liquids; the wooden beer cask is probably the best known example 2. Dry cooperage: made from wooden staves and suitable only for dry or near dry products 3. Plywood barrels and veneer casks: straight-sided cylindrical drums manufactured from sheet plywood and from a double row of veneer staves respectively; veneer casks are no longer manufactured in the United Kingdom The trade terms are often quite distinctive and the following definitions will assist in understanding the subject.

The power of packaging to influence judgement is great. In the developed world more than 2500 packages are purchased by every family every year, around 50 every week. Retail selling is a complex business and probably the greatest increases in the decoration of packages lie in the markets for food, household products, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and toiletries.

A package is essentially a substitute for a human hand. It frees the hand for other work by ‘holding’ a handful of possessions—isolating them from other matter and securing against loss. The modern package serves also to identify its contents and often to embellish them. Almost all wares tend to deteriorate under the influence of some extraneous factor; properly selected wrappings will delay this process by excluding that factor.

The very earliest types of shipping containers were bales and bilged casks, made to facilitate man-handling. The Industrial Revolution, and the resulting improvements in transport, the building of railways and better roads led to the development of wooden boxes and crates as the first modern shipping containers. Timber was then plentiful, and so inexpensive that wooden box makers, like most other users of wood, demanded high grades and ignored inferior material. Little consideration was given to wastage, either in forestry or in box making, and even less to questions of design to give maximum strength for minimum use of material.

Trees are felled and the branches trimmed off, then the trunks are cross cut into suitable lengths for hauling to the sawmill. At the mill the logs are washed, further cross cut if necessary, and then sawn into timbers or boards. The boards are sorted, graded and dried. After drying and inspection, boards are further dressed as required into finished lumber.

The term packaging cushioning systems covers a wide variety of techniques and materials for protecting goods from the effects of impacts and vibration in transit. They range from the traditional application of straw and woodwool in the packaging of glassware, pottery and ceramics, to the highly sophisticated shock isolation systems, incorporating springs and hydraulic shock absorbers, used in packages for aero-engines and space satellites. Goods can be protected against impact in three ways. 1. By spreading the forces on impact over a large area so that the force per unit area is reduced and no part of the product is subjected to concentrated forces 2. By supporting the product at its stronger points so that the forces on impact are directed to those points and not to the weaker ones 3. By reducing the forces and hence the deceleration on impact by using materials which compress on impact and cushion the product by absorbing the energy of the impact and converting the short duration/high intensity forces to lower intensity/longer duration forces which are less damaging Methods 1 and 2 do not require a compressible material or system to reduce damage to the exterior of a product but will not necessarily prevent internal damage for example in electronic equipment or a complex mechanical assembly. In practice, cushioning systems combine method 3 with load spreading or directing forces through the area of contact and the placing of the system in contact with the goods.

The aerosol concept originated in 1923 when Eric Rotheim of Oslo, Norway, developed a wax spray for skis and other products using butane and vinyl chloride as propellants and brass containers fitted with needle valves. The feature that started this packaging system was the realization that a liquefied gas inside a pressure vessel can provide a constant pressure in that vessel even though it is being emptied.

Jute, flax and hemp, when used for packaging purposes, are normally spun into yarns by dry-spinning processes, as distinct from the wet-spinning method used for finer flax yarns. Jute-substitute fibres are also used for sack production in certain areas of the world, although the quantities consumed are small in comparison with jute. Flax and hemp fabrics are normally too expensive to be used for other than special purposes, e.g. flax waterbags for use in hot countries, and tarred hemp sacks for the retail coal-carrying trade. Cotton is extensively used for the packaging of many commodities.

It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that the paper industry started to use wood pulp for making paper. Before this, timber had been used for many other purposes—building ships, houses, and for making furniture and boxes, but the beginning of the paper-making industry using wood pulp caused great changes in the practice of cutting trees.

The folding boxboard carton is familiar as a retail pack in the distribution of food stuffs, confectionery, toiletry and cosmetics, tobacco products, light engineering goods, and toys and games. Prior to 1879, paperboard boxes were made by cutting, folding and gluing with much hand work but, in that year, Robert Gair in America took out a patent for the mechanized process of cutting and creasing board which is essentially the same as that used today. Initially, converted printing machines were used; now, cutting and creasing presses are purpose-designed with outputs to match the present- day demands for precision and productivity.

Moulded pulp provides a lightweight form of packaging; a container with dimensions 100x100x150 mm can weigh between 25 g and 100 g depending on thickness and density. Such containers and forms are able to absorb shock without transmitting it to the packed item because although the material itself is only slightly resilient, the shock is dissipated by distortion and crushing at the point of impact.

The development of individual food packs and their importance in modern retailing systems are considered. The ways in which a good pack can help sales and the factors to be taken into account in pack design are set out. The special case of packs suitable for aseptic filling of UHT milk is then examined.

The serviceability of lined kraft-paper bags for packaging cornflour has been assessed in statistically-designed transport trials. Closely similar results were obtained by laboratory drop-tests. Conventional strength-tests on the kraft paper showed no correlation with the behaviour of the bags in service.