The newest gadgets that box, sort, tape and buffer are on display at a packaging industry trade show that looks grass-green in its support of sound environmental policies. ``It's the environmental revolution,'' said Craig Todd, district manager of Better Packages. ``Everybody's gotten on the bandwagon.'' Better Packages isn't offering a new product at the show but is exhibiting new packaging for its old products. The Shelton, Conn., company's tape machines, which use glue rather than adhesives which don't decompose, ``just happen to be the right thing at the right time,'' Todd said. More than 55,000 people were on hand Wednesday for the packaging industry's Pack Expo, which ends Friday at McCormick Place. Dozens of this year's 900 exhibitors included environmentally sensible products, which ran from mailing envelopes made of recycled materials to packaging ``peanuts'' made nearly entirely of cornstarch. The new ``peanuts,'' manufactured by American Excelsior Co. of Arlington, Texas, will give the environmentally conscious consumer an alternative to the standard polystyrene packaging peanut, the company said. The product, called Eco-Foam, is more than 95 percent cornstarch, and the rest is a water-soluble organic polymer, said Robert Asselin of National Starch and Chemical Co. of Bridgewater N.J. It handles the peanuts' production for American Excelsior. The product dissolves in water and is safe enough to eat, said Asselin, who did just that while chatting with a reporter. American Excelsior will keep making polystyrene peanuts, said company Vice President Ken Starrett. ``We've serviced this market for about 30 years or more,'' said Starrett. ``We're not competing with ourselves, and we don't see a conflict by making both products. Eco-Foam is still the newcomer to the market.'' Some companies said thir customers aren't fully converted to the idea that environmentally sound is best. ``They'll buy it if the cost is the same and the quality's the same. But if the price is higher or the quality's affected, forget it,'' said Peter Dauphinais, whose company, Polyair Corp., introduced ``Eco-Lite'' mailing envelopes this year. The envelopes are made from 100 percent recycled paper and plastic and, while they cost the same as non-recycled, they're less strong, said Dauphinais, sales man for the Toronto company. Cantech Industries Inc., of Johnson City, Tenn., introduced a new unbleached masking tape at the show. The new tape is free of caustic chemicals used in other tape manufacture but is not quite as white as its bleached counterpart, said Cantech's Jim Petruzzi. Petruzzi said manufacturers tend to have a natural inclination toward packaging materials which are the newest and white-est of whites - a tendency that dies hard. ``You spend your whole life on making things look good, then environmental issues come up,'' said Petruzzi. ``Not that they're not good issues.''
