Cleanroom Compliant Packaging: What You Need to Know

Before choosing the right supplier for your cleanroom products, consider the important role that packaging plays in the transfer of these products through your facility — uncontaminated.

In controlled environments, proper cleanroom packaging and cleanroom packaging materials are essential for many reasons, including durable handling and storage, protection from contamination, and critical traceability. Suitable packaging looks feels, and operates differently than generic packaging that is not cleanroom compliant.

Whether you are using gloves, wipers or garments, there are several key factors to look for to ensure your supplies arrive in suitable packaging and are able to transfer through your facility to your cleanroom operators — without contamination.

It is important to note that similar PPE and medical-grade products do not use cleanroom-compliant packaging and are never suitable for use in controlled environments.

Start at the receiving dock upon delivery of your cleanroom products

Review the shipping or carton box. Is the carton box generic and flimsy with minimal exterior labeling, or are your critical products delivered in sturdy corrugated carton boxes properly rated for the weight and size of the product?

Trusted and experienced suppliers like Valutek will commonly incorporate enhanced labeling and/or color coding for quick and easy visual inspection.

Are the labels easy to read and correctly identify the product?

Combining easy-to-read labels and color coding on the packaging exterior helps communicate suitability of use within your facility and ensures complete traceability and proper application. Generic packaging has minimal labeling and communicates very little critical lot control or product-specific information.

Experienced suppliers of critical products use enhanced labels as at-a-glance visual cues that help your team receive, inspect, and deploy inventory into your process. Valutek exterior labels include the following essentials:

• Product name and description
• Application/usage guidelines
• Country of origin
• Lot control information, including date of manufacture
• Part numbers
  
  

Is there a carton liner to protect against contamination during shipment?

Incorporating a carton liner in the shipping carton box protects the inner double-bagged products from shipping-related contaminants and is considered best practice in cleanroom-compliant packaging. All corrugated material is inherently dirty and sheds fibrous particles, so a proper carton liner is an essential layer of protection. Additionally, if carton boxes become damaged or punctured in transit, carton liners provide an essential additional barrier. 

Are the products double-bagged and flat-packed with a vacuum seal? 

Double bagging in clear plastic is critical to successful transfers of your cleanroom consumables — from your receiving dock to your warehouse, to your storage area, to their destination in a controlled area — in order to eliminate cross-contamination during this handling.

However, it’s important to note that if the outer pack bag has a perforated tear-off strip (commonly used for non-cleanroom supplies for quick and easy opening), assume there has been contamination of unfiltered air through the perforations, requiring a wipe down of the inner pack bags before the product can be admitted to the controlled environment for use.

Valutek never uses perforated tear-off strips in outer pack bags, thereby eliminating this potential cross-contamination.

Flat packaging also allows consumables to be easily loaded into the gown room dispensers and quickly accessed by the operators without taking additional time to suit up. Trusted suppliers like Valutek will nitrogen purge and vacuum-seal the flat-packed inner pack bags, ensuring no unfiltered air has compromised the consumable. The vacuum seal of inner pack bags also delivers easy visual confirmation during inspection — communicating immediately if the inner pack bag integrity has been compromised.

Cleanroom-compliant packaging protects your process and helps maintain your cleanliness requirements.

Cleanroom products need to be packed within a controlled environment and utilize suitable packaging to eliminate the risk of contamination. Whether you are using gloves, wipers or garments, it’s essential your supplies arrive in cleanroom-compliant packaging and are able to transfer through your facility to your cleanroom operators — without contamination. Trusted suppliers like Valutek know the importance of suitable packaging for durable handling and storage, for protection from contamination and for critical traceability. Don’t settle for generic packaging that puts your facility at risk — partner with a trusted supplier with decades of experience in developing critical solutions for controlled environments.

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