I have been sourcing these custom OPP/Cellophane style bags from China and this issue may not seem big when you peel one or two but we are doing multiple thousand pieces per day and the plastic strip that comes off the adhesive before the package gets sealed is super static charged. It will stick to your hands and is very hard to remove. We are currently sticking them to double sided tape but then they still fly around, stick to the table and the trash bags and it is super annoying.
Ive tried
-Putting the plastics in the freezer before use
-Coating our hands in dryer sheets before packaging
-100$ static gun off amazon used to destatic records
-Using double stick tape to stick it to something else and get it off our hand
-Build an inline fan apparatus with a 4" duct to suck it off our hands and into a filter. But at the end of the day dealing with cleaning the filter out is a nightmare its like a bomb of these things going off and sticking to everything
One of my questions is WHY is this even happening and then finally how can we remove the static off them, preferably a few hundred or thousand at a time
What if you try to use a greater source of static to attract them, instead of fighting the charge? Just brainstorming here, but should be doable. I’ll try to look into it after work tonight.
I’ll try it again I tried it a few times didn’t really work on the stack. Maybe on one by itself but that would take too much time. I appreciate the input regardless
You could make a designated area for the unpacking of this material. Use metal tables in this area to unload the material. Ground these tables further if needed but especially ground your people to these tables with straps. Use metal shelves to store the material. Anything to send this electricity another way. Electricity travels the path of least resistance so just send it to the moon if you have the pathway. Dry air is another problem. If for some reason the humidity in your building is low find a way to raise it or maybe humidifiers in a certain area would be enough.
Did a little research. Looks like plastic and printing industries are using ionizers to eliminate static charges. Seems like an ionized air blower next to the trash can may be an option to take the static out of your strips. Here’s one manufacturer’s website:
I know how fuckin insane I’ve gone over one little piece of plastic aggressively attacking me with no recourse. I empathize with you, and imagine great visuals of your whole crew rolling around being smothered out by little sticky plastic
Why it happens: as plastics are good electrical insulators, the energy put into separating the plastic peel strip from the plastic bag = localized charge that won’t dissipate.
Solution #1: raise the humidity. Not always possible or entirely effective, but moisture is the enemy of static.
#2: Anti-static sprays, as already mentioned in the thread.
#3: Industrial ionization blowers. These are widely used in semiconductor and other applications where static is undesirable.
It likely will be less expensive to deal with the strips in some other fashion, like tape donuts, or using a wet sponge to quickly de-static the pull strip before discarding into a Homer bucket for disposal.
