Flexible bags – With closure – Gathered bag mouth
Patent
1996-02-12
1997-05-27
Garbe, Stephen P.
Flexible bags
With closure
Gathered bag mouth
206 835, 3831211, B65D 3016, B65D 3328
Patent
active
056325584
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to containers for use in transporting tobacco, such as raw tobacco leaf or reconstituted tobacco, e.g. from the country of origin to the country of finished product manufacture.
Traditionally, raw tobacco is heated and made pliable in the presence of steam, and while in this state, it is fed into an hydraulic press which compresses a column of leaf from about 1000 cm down to about 70 cm into a cardboard carton. The press works over an empty carton containing a steel sleeve. When the press head returns on its up stroke the sleeve is removed and the flaps of the carton are closed, and the carton strapped. The tobacco is then often impregnated with a gaseous fumigant.
Such cardboard cartons need external strapping, because the tobacco tries to spring up before it has cooled. This strapping step is time consuming and adds additional cost to that of the carton. The cartons are inherently vulnerable to damage, particularly when wet, during handling, e.g. by a fork lift truck, or by being partially collapsed when stacked owing to shrinkage of the contents.
These problems have been overcome by a container of the kind described in our EP-A-0266923, which comprises rectangular bottom, top, front, rear and two side walls made of pliable woven polypropylene fabric, the top wall being connectable by a sliding clasp fastener along its front and side edges to the adjacent upper edges of the front and side walls. A container of this construction may be filled in a substantially conventional manner and, after withdrawal of the ram and sleeve, the top wall may be quickly folded down and secured by the fastener to the front and side walls quickly and before any significant expansion of the compressed tobacco occurs. Furthermore the container may be reused many times, as it is virtually indestructible when handled. In particular, it may be returned for refilling in a completely collapsed state in which it occupies minimum volume.
However, one problem with this improved container is that the sliding clasp fastener is an expensive component and its stitching to the edges of the top, front and side walls is time consuming and expensive. Also the container walls have had to be made of polypropylene, rather than cheaper jute, hessian or hemp, in order to provide an adequately strong support for the lock stitching by which the fastener is sewn in. Furthermore, suitable fasteners have been made of materials other than polypropylene and, when the container must ultimately be disposed of, it is desirable for the polypropylene to be recycled but this cannot be done without tediously cutting the lock stitching to remove the fastener, and this is expensive. Consequently, the containers have tended to be dumped in land fill sites, which is environmentally unfriendly.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,713,370 discloses a bag for packaging elongate products, such as vegetables in which the upper edges of front, rear, and side walls can be folded inwards to provide a partial top wall by means of a drawstring. However, the drawstring is woven to and fro through the fabric and when the drawstring is pulled up, the fabric is gathered to form the partial top wall, rather than forming flaps which lie flat. Both these factors provide significant friction and hence render it impossible to pull up the drawstring quickly. Also, the drawstring is arranged to be knotted and this involves significant time. Furthermore the extent to which the drawstring is to be pulled up depends upon the extent to which the bag has been filled. All these factors are not problems when packaging a stack of static vegetables but would be quite unacceptable for the present purpose in which a highly compressed block of tobacco has to be closed in a container of precise height substantially instantaneously after the press head has been removed and before any significant expansion of the tobacco has occurred.
In accordance with the present invention, a container for a compressed block of tobacco comprises rectangular bottom, front, rear and two side walls, of which at leas
REFERENCES:
patent: 2610757 (1952-09-01), Irvine
patent: 2713370 (1955-07-01), Quinn
patent: 2955741 (1960-10-01), Piazze
patent: 3425472 (1969-02-01), Marino
patent: 4739880 (1988-04-01), Sawyer et al.
patent: 5439109 (1995-08-01), McBride
International Search Report RE PCT/GB94/01430, Filed 01 Jul. 1994.
Gallaher Limited
Garbe Stephen P.
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