With earthshaking thuds, a plastic-stamping machine hammers a sheet of hot plastic into king-size drinking cups destined to quench travelers' thirst for soda at the nation's convenience stores.

The blank white cups aren't just flexible and resistant to splitting - they're also made from less plastic than Berry Plastics Corp.'s competitors through a manufacturing process the company guards so closely it forbids photographs of the machines.

As retailers such as Wal-Mart push for greener packaging, the privately held Berry Plastics is handling a growing number of redesign projects for customers eager to make their products less bulky to help both their bottom lines and the environment.

"It's not a fad anymore -- it's really turning into a trend," said Curt Begle, the Evansville company's vice president of container sales.

'Ripple Effect'

Last year alone, the company -- which counts among its customers Kraft, Nestle, Hershey's and Sherwin-Williams Paints -- retooled about 30 customers' cups, tubs and other plastic containers, shaving away more than 1 million pounds of plastic per year in one instance.

With more companies following suit, Berry Plastics has even hired an engineer devoted to repackaging projects.

"It's continuing to gain momentum," Begle said of efforts to pare packaging.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is helping push the trend along by encouraging its 66,000 suppliers to reduce their packaging starting next year as part of the world's largest retailer's goal of cutting overall packaging 5 percent by 2013.

In March, Wal-Mart unveiled an online database called a "packaging scorecard" to help its suppliers calculate the net environmental effect of factors such as the fuel needed to make and ship packaging materials and whether they use recycled components.

Since then, more than 3,100 vendors have used the online packaging scorecard system, said Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Thornton.

Participation is voluntary, but Thornton said Wal-Mart will begin using the scorecard's results in February to make decisions on purchasing merchandise. Eventually, the retailer hopes to create "zero waste" by recycling, reusing or otherwise breaking down product waste.

"There's a ripple effect that starts with just reducing the size of the package," Thornton said. It also reduces the need for shipping containers and puts more products on each truckload and shelf, he said.

Ruiz Food Products, the nation's largest producer of frozen Mexican foods, is using the packaging scorecard.

Bryce Ruiz, the Dinuba-based company's president and chief operating officer, said the database has revealed ways it can reduce the packaging for its 300 products, which include the popular El Monterey brand burritos and taquitos.

Ruiz declined to give specifics, but said the lessons learned build on efforts by his family's privately held business to satisfy customers with foods - not an oversized package.

"It's common sense. Put less air in the box and the consumer gets a box full of something, versus a box full of air," he said.

It's hard to say how much money any particular company might save in packaging because of the different types of materials used, and companies are reluctant to say for competitive reasons, said Jim Peters, director of education for the Institute of Packaging Professionals.

But the savings can reach into the millions of dollars, said Peters, whose Naperville, Ill.-based group's membership includes some 5,200 packaging experts that work for companies spanning the full spectrum of American industry.

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