Single color bar code printing on a multi-package

[0058]Selected dyes were compounded into a polyethylene resin. For these examples, separate concentrates were produced for each of the three colors: G2003-06-01 for the cyan dye (0.05% loading), G2003-06-02 for the yellow dye (0.50 / 0 loading), and G2003-06-03 for the magenta dye (0.5% loading). Absorbance curves for these three concentrates are given in FIG. 6.

[0059]After selecting a dye loading to provide a neutral color, the concentrates were blended with polyethylene and extruded into a 14-mil sheet using a 1 inch 24:1 single screw extruder and a inch coat hanger die with a standard casting roll stand. The resulting sheet included a uniform color and 6½ inch width. This dye loading in the sheet blocked the reading of a standard bar code. A BYK Gardiner Haze Gard Plus instrument measured total transmittance, haze and clarity for the sheet. As seen in Table 1 below, the transmittance of light was reduced by about 26% but haze was reduced by 7% and clarity improved by 1%. Text was ea