What your packaging label says about your sustainability

Pack­ag­ing is every­where: on the super­mar­ket shelf, in your shop­ping bas­ket, in your recy­cling and in the bin. As such, the need for a sus­tain­able solu­tion is easy to under­stand.

How­ev­er, find­ing and imple­ment­ing such a solu­tion has not always been sim­ple despite no short­age of con­sumer demand. Sur­veys have repeat­ed­ly shown that shop­pers con­sid­er the recy­cla­bil­i­ty of pack­ag­ing impor­tant. They have peti­tioned for it to be more wide­ly avail­able, and they even say they are pre­pared to pay more to get it.

This demand means pack­ag­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers are see­ing a huge surge of inter­est in sus­tain­able solu­tions from busi­ness­es, not only from the more niche eco-lifestyle ranges and prod­uct lines, but also among main­stream brands.

As evi­denced by the likes of L’Oréal switch­ing to refill­able packs and Nivea using bio-based plas­tic jars, take-up is grow­ing out­side food and drink, notes Mariya Nedelche­va, a prod­uct man­ag­er at Avery Den­ni­son: “The mar­ket for sus­tain­able pack­ag­ing is dynam­ic and devel­op­ing very quick­ly; there is a lot of demand,” she says.

“And while it might not be heav­i­ly reg­u­lat­ed at present, new guide­lines are emerg­ing and exist­ing ones are evolv­ing fast. How­ev­er, a dynam­ic mar­ket cou­pled with new guide­lines point to a lack of clar­i­ty in the indus­try.”

While there is a call to cut, or even elim­i­nate, sin­gle-use plas­tic from pack­ag­ing solu­tions, there is also a fast-growth trend for brands want­i­ng to mea­sure and reduce their CO2 foot­print. Using recy­cled plas­tics and ensur­ing they under­go recy­cling at end-of-use are often the best options.

Eco-design can help brands resolve these mixed mes­sages, explains Nedelche­va. “Eco-design prin­ci­ples can min­imise the amount of mate­r­i­al in pro­duc­tion, but also max­imise its recy­cla­bil­i­ty at end-of-use. Link­ing design think­ing to life-cycle analy­sis can there­fore real­ly help mea­sure and reduce the total envi­ron­men­tal impact.”

Avery Den­ni­son runs an in-house EcoDe­sign pro­gramme to embed the prin­ci­ples into every prod­uct, from com­postable labels to its range of mate­ri­als made with recy­cled con­tent. With the launch of the next gen­er­a­tion of its Clean­Flake tech­nol­o­gy, it is also boost­ing the yield of rPET plas­tic that is avail­able and can be turned into new prod­ucts.  

Orig­i­nal­ly launched as a bev­er­age label in 2013, Clean­Flake tech­nol­o­gy solves a crit­i­cal prob­lem in PET plas­tic recy­cling by ensur­ing label adhe­sive stays with the label and not on the pack­age. This min­imis­es con­t­a­m­i­na­tion and helps pro­duce pur­er qual­i­ty PET for recy­cling, mean­ing more can go on to become new pack­ag­ing, rather than being down­cy­cled, sent to land­fill or incin­er­at­ed.

This cir­cu­lar­i­ty is achieved with­out com­pro­mis­ing on usabil­i­ty, with Clean­Flake mate­ri­als per­form­ing just like any oth­er self-adhe­sive label and offer­ing the same aes­thet­ic. This makes them suit­able for a wide range of prod­uct seg­ments, includ­ing beau­ty, food and home and per­son­al care. By improv­ing recy­cla­bil­i­ty for many kinds of PET con­tain­ers, includ­ing clamshells and trays, Clean­Flake broad­ens the range of sources of high­er-qual­i­ty PET avail­able, mean­ing the indus­try is less reliant on bot­tles.

Clean­Flake is also use­ful to brands from an Extend­ed Pro­duc­er Respon­si­bil­i­ty per­spec­tive, says Nedelche­va: “Com­pa­nies using PET pack­ag­ing no longer have to choose between true recy­cla­bil­i­ty and out­stand­ing per­for­mance when it comes to their labels. We have closed the gap.”

Clean­Flake label con­struc­tions come with an rPET23 lin­er as stan­dard. Made in part from post-con­sumer PET plas­tic waste, the lin­er can be recy­cled through Avery Dennison’s AD Cir­cu­lar scheme.

This pan-Euro­pean, cross-indus­try ini­tia­tive offers the abil­i­ty to col­lect and recy­cle release lin­ers from any man­u­fac­tur­er, regard­less of ori­gin, via a web-based app. Avery Den­ni­son han­dles all the paper­work, com­pli­ance and reg­u­la­to­ry con­cerns. AD Cir­cu­lar pro­vides use­ful data in the form of ana­lyt­ics and cer­tifi­cates, show­ing vol­umes of lin­er waste recy­cled, as well as the total CO2 emis­sions avoid­ed as a result.

As an exam­ple of col­lab­o­ra­tion across the val­ue chain, AD Cir­cu­lar illus­trates how Avery Den­ni­son helps brands advance and evi­dence sus­tain­abil­i­ty, con­cludes Nedelche­va.

“Nobody can go it alone when it comes to cir­cu­lar­i­ty. Reg­u­la­tors, recy­clers, brands and man­u­fac­tur­ers are all part of an ecosys­tem and need to col­lab­o­rate to bet­ter serve the plan­et in a more nature-dri­ven future. Work­ing togeth­er on sus­tain­abil­i­ty is a must.”

For more infor­ma­tion vis­it label.averydennison.com

Pro­mot­ed by Avery Den­ni­son