How to Keep Webs Clear of Contaminants
- Published: June 1, 2026, By Trevor
As the packaging world transitions to mono-material films and fiber-based substrates with a greater proportion of recycled content, keeping webs consistently clear of contaminants is more important than ever.
While these emerging materials offer greatly enhanced sustainability credentials and are the foundation of realising the circular packaging revolution, these materials are more vulnerable to contamination than their predecessors.
As work is undertaken to adapt lines for these new more sustainable materials, manufacturers, converters, printers and brand owners must review their contamination control strategies to maintain quality standards and ensure consistent high yields.
Example of white flakes and powder build-up on HDPE film line. Image courtesy of Meech.
The Sustainability Imperative
With the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation setting explicit targets for packaging recyclability and usage of materials with higher recycled content by 2030, the entirety of the packaging value chain is under pressure to rethink packs and reconfigure lines.
Two material families sit at the heart of this circular packaging revolution:
- Mono-material flexible films: commonly high-density polyethylene (HDPE) enhanced via machine direction orientation (MDO) to deliver stiffness, clarity and heat resistance while reducing thickness and weight.
- Fiber-based substrates: natural fibers derived from materials such as wood pulp, bamboo, bagasse, wheat straw, or agricultural residues, supporting the production of recycled paper labels, sleeves, folding cartons and corrugated - with higher recycled content.
Both choices promise environmental benefits; however, they also raise the stakes for surface cleanliness and static control in everyday production.
What Changes on the Line
With an MDO film, the process of heating, stretching, annealing and cooling all contribute to the generation and accumulation of static charges. A charged web acts like a magnet, attracting dust, flakes and fines that will become embedded in the pack if effective cleaning and static control solutions are not employed.
For example, these contaminants will frequently deposit on rollers at print or laminate stations. Operators will witness “white powder” building up, that eventually will cause indentations in the film, creating wastage and requiring unplanned cleaning stops.
Meanwhile, the challenges for boards composed of fiber-based substrates will increase as the circular economy flywheel kicks into gear. Repeated recycling leads to the shortening of fibers and release of greater volumes of loose “fuzz”. If this fuzz is not removed before printing, coating or lamination, finish quality suffers, reject rates rise and the sustainability gains of recycled fibers are undermined.
In both scenarios, unmanaged static compounds the contamination control challenge by continually reattracting contaminants to the web. The result is avoidable downtime, quality control compromises and wasted ink and substrate.
Attempts to mitigate these reduced yields by increasing speeds and roller counts are likely to prove fruitless as the issues tend to linearly scale with these tactics. The only long-term sustainable solution is the incorporation of appropriate web cleaning and static control technologies.
Together, these behaviours highlight the need for contamination‑removal methods that can act early, operate at line speed and manage static at the same time.
Meech VacClean diagram. Image courtesy of Meech.
What is a Web Cleaner?
A web cleaner is a compact unit integrated within a line to remove unwanted particles from the surface of a moving material, leaving a cleaner, more stable surface ready for critical production stages such as printing, coating, laminating or winding.
Depending on material characteristics, this can be achieved using contact cleaners, which lift and remove debris through tacky roller, rotary brush or vacuum technology, or non‑contact cleaners, which use controlled airflow to dislodge and capture contaminants without touching the material. Either approach will normally incorporate static control ionization technology to ensure that contaminants don’t immediately reattach themselves to the web.
While non‑contact cleaning is often the best option for delicate films, advances in contact web cleaning technology now allow operators to achieve enhanced contaminant removal with low risk of friction‑related damage, even at higher speeds.
Not All Contact Web Cleaners Are Created Equal
Modern web cleaning systems suitable for sustainable packaging applications employ highly polished, low friction plates to break the boundary layer before vacuum extraction is used to remove debris without damaging sensitive substrates. This allows for the removal of semi-bonded fibers and particles without scuffing.
As with any web cleaning solution, supplementary static control technology is incorporated to ensure dislodged particles are not immediately reattracted to the web, and this also improves the efficiency of airflow-based cleaning.
This style of advanced contact web cleaner can be used effectively across many common sustainable packaging applications:
- MDO mono-HDPE lines: positioned ahead of the MDO stages and again before surface sensitive steps such as printing or laminating.
- Labels, sleeves and flexible print: cleaning immediately before print helps protect print heads and reduce visible defects, supporting higher first pass acceptance.
- Paper, board and corrugated substrates: removal of loose fibers from recycled material ahead of print and coating, helping to stabilise quality as fiber length continues to shorten across recycling loops.
Although there are differences between production environments, aggregated field observations from multiple MDO sites using next‑generation vacuum-based contact web cleaning systems indicate that incorporating in‑line contamination removal can meaningfully improve operational stability.
Prior to installation, operators at several sites reported frequent lengthy cleaning interventions; their MDO rollers needed to be cleaned every 12 to 36 hours with cleaning procedures lasting between two and four hours depending on roller configuration.
These interventions typically caused total line downtime of five to six hours and required teams of two to three people, resulting in significant direct labour and lost‑capacity costs. In some cases, this additional maintenance burden translated into an estimated 20 percent reduction in available production capacity.
Following the introduction of in‑line contamination removal, sites consistently reported that cleaning intervals extended by more than 50 percent. Consequently, operators recorded fewer unplanned stoppages, lower defect rates and a measurable reduction in emergency cleans and other related maintenance.
Strengthening Circularity Through Comprehensive Contamination Control
For quality managers, production leads and sustainability teams, the benefits are clear. Cleaner webs, fewer stoppages and steadier throughput, support recyclability targets, reduce avoidable waste and help prevent production bottlenecks, while also supporting circularity by helping mono‑material films and recycled fiber substrates maintain the surface quality required to re‑enter the recycling loop. These operational gains contribute not only to improved process efficiency but also to the broader sustainability objectives that underpin the shift toward fully recyclable packaging systems.
About the Author
Eleni Fotopoulou is Head of Product Management at Meech International, a global leader in industrial static control, surface cleaning and air technologies. She oversees a diverse portfolio of innovative products that help manufacturers and converters improve quality, efficiency, and process reliability across demanding production environments. Learn more at: https://www.meech.com