Interview with John Barry, General Converting, Inc.

by: Dennis Salazar

21 May

Once in while you get very lucky and find a great vendor partner in your own back yard. That is the case with General Converting, Inc., a terrific company in neighboring Bolingbrook, IL that specializes in “green” paperboard packaging. They perfectly complement what we do in corrugated board and we have been fortunate enough to work together on several recent projects. I had the pleasure of interviewing their General Manager, John Barry and he openly shared his valuable knowledge and insight with our readers.

DS: John, can you tell us briefly what General Converting does?

JB: General Converting is a premier designer and manufacturer of folding cartons for a wide variety of industries, including food, confections, cosmetics, pharmaceutical, automotive, media, entertainment, pet supply, etc. We focus in high quality, high graphic content cartons.

DS: Please tell us how long your company has been engaged in sustainability and why you feel it is important.

Recent General Converting, Salazar Packaging Project

JB: Our company has been interested in recycling since it was started 27 years ago. However, we became much more interested in overall sustainability about 4 years ago and have been aggressively pursuing a smaller carbon footprint since that time. Just this year we have become SFI, PEFC and FSC certified. We are also pursuing LEED certification and hope to become platinum certified by next year.

DS: Your website and brochures indicate your products are made with 100% renewable (wind) energy. Those of us who have visited your beautiful facility have not seen the windmills. Please explain how that works.

greenpowerpartnermark JB: We receive our energy from the same electric grid that supplies all of the electricity to the local area, except that we have purchased energy credits from Constellation New Energy that specify our watts purchased this year to be produced from a windmill farm in southern Illinois. This means that all of our electricity requirements will be generated by wind power rather than a coal fired power plant which would otherwise have supplied the power. This has resulted in a reduction of 1,475,000 pounds of coal from being burned in Illinois per year.

DS: John recently I wrote a blog post on this blog, extolling the benefits of using corrugated board for primary as well as secondary packaging. Please tell us the advantages of using paperboard.

JB: The primary benefits are cost and recyclability. All of our paperboard and cardboard is 100% recyclable, even with the inks and coatings that we have applied to the cartons.

DS: There always seems to be great confusion in printed packaging, about inks. You hear about soy based, water based, vegetable based, plant based, etc. What do you use at General Converting and can you please bring a little clarity to this important area?

JB: We use only soy based inks at our facility. These have much fewer VOC’s than solvent based inks and the soy based inks are 100% friendly to the recycling processes. They are also renewable since they are derived primarily from soy beans.

DS: In conclusion John, what role do you see paperboard packaging play in sustainability and how do we get there quickly?

JB: As an industry, we need to continue to offer packaging that meets the needs of the customer in graphic content, appeal and style while also pushing toward more sustainable solutions. The quickest way to do this is to look in our own manufacturing operations for ways to be friendlier to the environment.

DS: Thank you John. We wish you much good luck in 2009 and we thank you and General Converting for your care and contribution to sustainability.