Botswana’s Sun Plastics gears up, gains BRC accreditation & sets up depots in SA
SUN Plastics, the Botswana-based manufacturer of innovative and advanced barrier flexible packaging, has recently gained A-category BRC accreditation.
With over 40 years experience in the flexible packaging market within the Southern Africa region, Sun Plastics is dedicated to produce the most technologically advanced films and offers quality and service to international standards.
Sun Plastics is based in Gaborone, with trading depots and warehouses set up recently in Johannesburg, KZN and Cape Town. The production plant is a world class operation complying with a number of international rating systems. The process leading up to qualification to the A-category BRC rating is seen as a major achievement for a film manufacturer in the sub-Saharan market. In order to achieve this standard of production, Sun Plastics has made a number of major investments in equipment as well as in the training of its staff in every area of production, quality assurance and standards maintenance.
Among the investments by Sun over the past few years have been the installation of a 7-layer blown film line, a Nordmeccanica solventless lamination plant, high-speed slitting and pouch making equipment and a range of other international standard processing machines.
Sun Plastics is run by Raj Patel, formerly of Plastic Industries of Germiston. The business is now under the management of his son, Akash Patel, who recently returned from studying in the USA, during which time he also worked for a period at General Electric group, a global leader in a wide range of areas, including power, lighting, additives, health care and renewables.
Manufacturing capabilities
Sun manufactures a wide range of films from mono up to 7-layer using EVOH, PP, Surlyn, Appeal, Nucrel, polyamide, LD and linear up to 2050mm ungusseted layflat and non-barrier up to 2500mm gusseted (nylon barrier layflat from 1-1,6m) in the gauge range 30-250μ. Controls are by PlastControl of Germany, which technology is used on the blown film lines.
It offers print and lamination to the highest standards, which was essential for the BRC accreditation. The same high standards are practised in bag and pouch making.
Possibly of most importance for Sun at this stage is its environmental outlook. Contrary to what was the case for virtually all convertors up till even a few years ago, it now “strives to reduce the amount of polymer in packaging products,” says Akash Patel. It also is making maximum practical use of recycled materials wherever possible in its packaging products.
Sun also operates a state of the art Erema recyling machine in-house to ensure all factory scrap is recyled.
