DRAFT TANZANIA STANDARD
GDC 4 (1079) DTZS Lamination Plastic films -Specification
TANZANIA BUREAU OF STANDARDS
© TBS 2022 all rights reserved                                1stEdition
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF TBS/GDC 4 (1079) DTZS LAMINATION PLASTIC 
FILMS -SPECIFICATION
This draft Tanzania standard specifies requirements, methods of sampling and testing 
for plastic films used for lamination purposes.
It is anticipated that this draft Tanzania Standard will be made COMPULSORY i n its 
application.NATIONAL FOREWORDS
0.1 The Tanzania Bureau of Standards is the statutory national standards body for 
Tanzania, established under the Act.No.3 of 1975, amended by Act.No.2 of 2009.
This draft Tanzania Standard has been adopted by Packaging Technical committee, 
under the supervision of the General Techniques Standards Divisional Committee 
(GTDC) and it is in accordance with the procedures of the Bureau.
Due to the frequent use of lamination films and their importance in packaging, book 
covers, brochures, business cards, posters, banners, display graphics, restaurant 
menus, legal documents and other printed items, prompted the development of this 
draft standard.
In development of this draft Tanzania standard assistance was drawn from different 
literatures and ISO standards including the following:
ISO 15988 Plastics - Film and sheeting - Biaxially oriented poly (ethylene 
terephthalate) (PET) films
ISO 17555 Plastics -Film and sheeting -Biaxially oriented polypropylene (PP) 
films
         ISO 15987 Plastics Film and sheeting Biaxially oriented polyamide
Acknowledgement is hereby made for the assistance derived from this source.
0.2 Terminology and conventions
Some terminology and certain conventions are not identical with those used as 
Tanzania Standard; attention is drawn to the following:
The comma has been used as decimal marker for metric dimensions. In Tanzania, its 
current practice to use a full point on the baseline as decimal marker.
draft Tanzania 1. Scope
This draft Tanzania standard specifies requirements, methods of sampling and testing 
for plastic films used for lamination purposes.
2. Normative references
The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of 
their contents constitute requirements of this document. For dated references, only 
the edition cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition of the referenced 
document (including any amendments) applies.
ISO 527-3:2018 Plastics Determination of tensile properties part 3: test 
conditions for films and sheets
         ISO 14782 Plastics Determination of haze for transparent materials
          ISO 8296:2003 Plastics Film and sheeting determination of wetting 
tension
ISO 2556:1974 Plastics Determination of the gas transmission rate of films 
and thin sheets under    atmospheric pressure manometric method
ISO 2528:2017 Sheet materials Determination of water vapour transmission 
rate (WVTR) gravimetric (dish) method
3. Terms and definitions 
For the purpose of this document, the following terms and definitions shall apply.
ISO and IEC maintain terminological databases for use in standardization at the 
following addresses:
            IEC Electropedia: available at http://www.electropedia.org/
            ISO Online browsing platform: available at http://www.iso.org/obp
3.1film
supported or unsupported thin polymeric material that is laterally continuously 
connected used for lamination purposes
3.2haze
percentage of transmitted light, passing through a film, which deviates from the 
incident light
     Note1 to entry: This phenomenon gives the plastic a cloudy appearance
3.3wetting tension
tension taken to be equal to the surface tension of the liquid which just exhibits a 
zero-contact angle with the surface of a polymer film      Note 1 to entry: This is used to give an estimate of the film's surface energy in 
mN/m
3.4longitudinal (machine) direction 
MD
direction parallel to the roll length, corresponding to the extrusion direction
3.5transverse direction
TD
direction to the width (at right angle to the length)
4. Requirements 
4.1. General Requirements
4.1.1Films shall be visibly free of flaws, slackness, wrinkles, stains, foreign matter 
or marks which can impair their serviceability as agreed upon by interested 
parties.
4.1.2The splicing of two films in a roll should preferably be prominently marked to 
provide a visible indication when the roll is viewed from the end. The method of 
marking the splice should be agreed upon between the interested parties. 
4.1.3The film shall be furnished in the form of roll or in any other form as agreed 
between interested parties.
4.1.4The material used for manufacturing the film shall be any of the following: 
Biaxially Oriented Polypropylene (BOPP), Biaxially Oriented Polyethylene 
Terephthalate (PET), Polyamide (PA) or other polymeric materials or blend that 
meet the requirements of this standard.
4.1.5The film shall have no splices or air bubbles.
4.1.6The film shall be free from any objectionable odour.
   
4.2 Thickness
The thickness tolerance shall be ±10% within of the nominal value.
4.3 Specific Requirements
Films shall meet the requirements of physical properties listed in Table 1. 
Table 1: Properties of the filmPropertiesRequirements
Test 
MethodBOPP film BOPET 
filmPA film 
(Nylon)Other 
polymeric 
materials *
MD TD MD TD MD TD MD TD
Tensile strength at 
break, MPa, minimum100 100 100 100 150 150 100 100 ISO 527-3
Tensile strain at break, 
% maximum270 150 200 200 200 200 200 200 ISO 527-3
Haze, %, maximum 5 8 8 8 ISO 
14782
Wetting tension, 
mN/m, minimum36 40 40 40 ISO 8296
Coefficient of oxygen
Transmission,
(cc/m2/day),
maximum.50 ISO 2556
Coefficient of water 
vapour
Transmission, 
(g/m2/day),
maximum.10 ISO 2528
*Polymeric materials apart from Biaxially Oriented Polypropylene (BOPP), Biaxially Oriented 
Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) and Polyamide (PA) like Polyester, Polyurethane etc.
5 Packaging
Packaging and size of unit packaging shall be agreed upon between interested parties 
taking into account conditions of transportation and storage.
6 Marking on packaging
The following shall be clearly marked on the package:
a) name of products or symbol:  PET, BOPP or Polyamide (Nylon)film or other 
polymeric material
b) nominal thickness;
c) year and month of manufacture;
d) name of manufacturer or symbol
7 Sampling
7.1 LotIn any consignment, all rolls of film of the same grade shall be grouped together to 
constitute a lot.
7.1.1Test for determining the conformity of the lot to the requirements of the 
specification shall be done on each lot separately. The number of rolls of the 
film to be selected for this purpose shall be in accordance with column 2 of 
Table 2.
7.1.2The rolls of films shall be selected at random from the lot. 
7.2 Number of Tests and Criteria for Conformity
7.2.1From each of the roll of the film selected according to 7.1.2 approximately 10 
m2of the film of full width shall be cut; care being taken to exclude not less than 
2 metre lengths of film (or three full turns of the roll) from either end. The test 
specimens for the various tests shall be cut from different parts of each of the 
10 m2pieces.
7.2.2Each of the pieces as obtained in 7.2.1 from a lot shall be examined for general 
requirements (see 4.1). Any piece which does not meet the requirements of any 
of the above characteristics shall be considered as defective.
7.2.3
7.2.4 if the number of defective found (see 7.2.2) is less than or equal to the 
corresponding permissible number of defective rolls given in column 3 of Table 
2, the lot shall be tested for the remaining requirements of the specification. If 
the number of defective found is more than the corresponding permissible 
number given in column 3 of Table 2, one more lot of samples may be 
examined.
7.2.5The lot having been found satisfactory according to 7.2.3 shall be tested for 
specific requirements (see 4.3). For this purpose, the rolls already tested 
according to 7.2.2 and found satisfactory shall be used for testing any of these 
characteristics. Specimen(s) for these tests shall be cut from 10 m2piece 
already taken from each roll/folded film selected (see 7.2.1),
7.2.5.1 The lot shall be deemed to have satisfied these requirements if all the 
test results for different characteristics given in 7.2.4 are found meeting the 
relevant requirements of the specification.
7.2.6The lot shall be declared as conforming to the requirements of the specification, 
if the requirements for various characteristics as given in 7.2.3 and 7.2.4 are 
satisfied.
Table 2 Scale of Sampling and Permissible Number of Defectives(Clauses 7.1.1 and 7.2.3)
Lot Size Number of rolls Permissible number 
of Defectives
1 1 0
2 to 15 2 0
16 to 40 3 0
41 to 65 5 0
66 to 110 7 0
111 to 180 10 0
181 to 300 15 0
301 to 500 25 1