Every year the same pattern repeats: cartons sealed perfectly in October start arriving open in December. The tape did not change; the temperature did. Cold stiffens pressure-sensitive adhesives, condensation forms on cartons moved between warm warehouses and freezing docks, and the failure shows up at the customer’s dock — never on your own packing line. A winter sealing plan costs al...
Filament tape looks simple — a plastic film with glass fibers running through it — so buyers often spec it the way they buy commodity packing tape: pick a tensile number, pick a width, done. The failures that follow are rarely the tape’s fault. They trace back to the same five specification mistakes, and each one is cheaper to fix on paper than in the field. Here they are, in the...
Reinforced water-activated kraft tape is marketed as recyclable with the carton — and on paper, it is. The kraft backing and the starch-based adhesive both break down in the repulper. But the fiberglass reinforcement does not: in paper mills, glass filaments are screened out during repulping and typically end up landfilled as process waste. For buyers who need a genuine mono-material claim &...
Switching tape suppliers is where procurement savings go to leak. The new tape is cheaper on paper, then the trial rolls behave differently, the line operators complain, mixed inventory causes confusion, and three months later purchasing quietly reorders from the old supplier at the old price. None of that is inevitable. A structured transition — qualify, overlap, brief, lock — gets yo...
The cheapest quote is rarely the cheapest tape. When three suppliers quote “the same” carton sealing tape at three different prices, the specs behind those prices are usually not the same at all — different units, different test methods, different things left unsaid. Some of it is innocent; some of it is not. Either way, here is how to normalize competing quotes before you compar...
A sealed carton is only as secure as its seal. Standard packing tape can be peeled, the contents accessed, and the tape smoothed back down — leaving no trace. Tamper-evident tape changes the equation: it does not stop anyone from opening the carton, but it makes sure you know someone did. This guide explains the three mechanisms, when they are worth the premium, and their limits. 1. The thre...
Every carton you ship is a billboard you already paid for. Custom printed tape puts your logo, handling marks, or brand colors on every box at a fraction of the cost of printed cartons — but only if you specify it correctly. Washed-out prints, off-brand colors, and pallets of unusable tape usually trace back to the same handful of specification mistakes. This guide walks through them in the ...
The global plastics treaty is moving again. After the delegations' meeting in Bangkok on September 27–30, 2026, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee chair released a revised working text, and the resumed negotiating session (INC-5.4) is now on the calendar for March 2027. No final treaty exists yet, but the direction of travel is clear enough that packaging tape buyers should start pr...
On an automatic case sealer, the tape is part of the machine. Operators blame the sealer for jams; half the time the sealer is fine and the roll is wrong — wrong core, wrong outer diameter, wrong unwind tension. Specifying tape for machine application is a different job than specifying tape for a hand gun. This guide covers the four specs that decide whether the machine runs or stops. 1. Rol...
Comparing tape by price per roll is how shippers overpay. A cheaper roll that needs two strips per carton, stalls the case sealer, or lets go in a cold warehouse costs more per sealed carton than the “expensive” alternative. Cost per sealed carton is the only honest comparison. Here is how to run it for the two dominant options: water-activated kraft tape (WAT) and BOPP pressure-sensit...