As part of a joint development project, Polifilm (Cologne / Germany; www.polifilm.com), schäfer-etiketten (Wolfschlugen / Germany; www.schaefer-etiketten.de) and Herma (Filderstadt / Germany; www.herma.com) claim to have produced the world’s first PE labels that are made entirely from post-consumer packaging and can be subsequently removed. With the post-consumer recyclate (PCR) obtained from recycled PE milk bottles, even the carrier plastic of the white pigment masterbatches consists of polyethylene PCR. At present, polyolefin packaging is usually recycled with the labels, which sometimes entails a loss of quality.

A label adhesive from Herma is said to ensure that the labels can be subsequently removed without residue. Labels, adhesives and printing inks could thus be sorted out from the stream of recyclable material, and relevant wash-off tests have already been successfully carried out by Sorema (Anzano del Parco / Italy; www.sorema.it). “We have a solution here that can really drive the material cycle forward – provided the recycling companies switch, as with PET, from cold washing to hot washing for PE/PP, too,” said Volker Hurth, key account manager cosmetics at schäfer-etiketten.

In autumn 2019, the three project partners were awarded the “German Packaging Prize” for another PE label. This was also made entirely of recyclate but consisted half of household waste and half of industrial waste.