The Ever Evolving World of Stretch Wrap: Part 1 – It Takes All Kinds!

As the industry evolves so do the products that keep it moving forward into the future.  Stretch wrap, stretch film, pallet wrap, pallet film, that plastic stuff, or what ever you choose to refer to it as has protected our products in the warehouse supplies and materials handling industry for decades.  Skid upon skid, load after load, year after year, decade after… Well, you get the picture.  Not only have the great stretch wrap gods (that would be the manufacturers) given us such a variety of stretch wrap, but they have gotten more stylish too! Feel free to add your ooh’s and ah’s here.
Stretch Wrap and Dispensers
Stretch Wrap and Dispensers
There are many kinds of stretch film for many applications.  There’s stretch banding film, extended core hand wrap, machine pallet wrap, security pallet wrap, UVI film wrap, printed pallet wrap, and my favorite the privacy stretch film just to name a few.  That’s right folks, it’s not the same stretch wrap you used to wrap a co-worker’s motorcycle to a pallet and place it on the roof with a forklift. Those days are gone!
Back in the day business owners or managers would call up their local warehouse supplies and materials handling sales person and request a case of stretch film.  No questions asked, the salesman would deliver whatever they had in the warehouse.  Now a days it’s quite a bit more complicated, not just in regards to how many square feet is on a roll or the strength, but what is it being used for?  Now a days different product requires different stretch wrap.