Sustainable packaging film for sleeving, stretching, shrinking and sealing

Packaging films are real high-tech products and thus indispensable – they are flexible, thin and can be equipped with a multitude of different functions so that they can safely seal food trays, enclose beverage bottles as sleeves or be wrapped around pallets for safety during transport. The sustainability trend has long since reached the field of films. But the switch to monomaterials, the use of recyclates and the reduction of film thickness often pose challenges that manufacturers have to face, especially with a view towards the planned European Packaging Directive.

Currently, for example, PET bottles with shrink sleeves are often already lost to recycling during the sorting process. The reason for this is that the thin plastic sleeves are often made of a different material, which means that the bottles are not recognised by the sorting system. On the US market, Nestlé has recently introduced a new development for its Nesquik portfolio, where bottle, shrink sleeve and cap are all made of PET material and can be recycled together. The sleeves are also printed in eco-friendly, washable colours. A new light protection technology, used for the first time, also makes them better equipped to protect the light-sensitive milk-based beverages. The switch to recyclable sleeves allows approximately 4,500 tonnes of PET plastics to be better sorted and recycled every year.

A different method is preferred by the company CCL Label with its EcoFloat technology. This is based on a floating polyolefin material with low density that can be separated from PET bottles during the swim/sink separation process in recycling plants . While the heavier bottle material sinks to the bottom of the water baths, the lighter sleeve material floats on the surface of the water. The floating shrink labels are in demand and CCL Label has just opened a new production site in Spain. There, the shrink sleeves are printed using modern printing technology, a combination of offset and gravure printing, and offer customers a high degree of flexibility with frequent changes of design.

Better recycling is the goal of film manufacturer Südpack. The company has marketed new cover films for peelable thermoformed and modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) for sliced sausage and cheese, which during the recycling process can be separated from the material flow of the bottom film. This makes it possible to recycle PET cover films and APET bottom films separately and to reintroduce them to their respective material flows. With a thickness of 45 µm, the new top film is also very thin and therefore saves on material. Apart from the peelable version, there is also a top film equipped with multipeel, which can be opened and safely closed multiple times. These sustainable films can be used like conventional cover films on thermoform packaging machines and tray sealers. Advantages of use: You can now declare your packaging concept using a peel or multipeel PET floatable with a mono APET tray as recyclable.

Save resources with the stretch and packaging films by Brangs + Heinrich. The three-layer high-performance Coex films made by the company, for example, use high-quality raw materials to reach very high stability levels, which make it possible to save up to 25 percent of material. And as the three layers are made from pure LDPE, these films are 100 percent recyclable. Now, the company has developed a holistic recycling concept which closes the material cycle, reuses raw materials and can be integrated into existing logistics processes: a powerful press that compresses bales of film to 30 percent of their original volume after use. When new films arrive, the bales are picked up by the transport company and subsequently paid for based on their grade of purity. The requirements of the planned European Packaging Directive are already met by the company’s recycled stretch and packaging films, which are produced from consumer waste and contain at least 35 percent recyclates (post consumer recyclate) and which are now DIN CertCo certified.

Stretchable hoods for transport are sophisticated products. Duo Plast, Der Grüne Punkt and Nestlé Germany together have developed a new stretchable hood made of low-density polyethylene (LDPE), which, in its middle layer, contains up to 20 percent recyclates from the plastic waste collected in yellow bags or yellow bins. According to the partners, this is the first time that post-consumer recyclates (PCR) from household waste collection are being used in a sophisticated product. “Waste film from the yellow bag or yellow bin is still mostly being recycled into low-quality products, if it isn’t immediately used to produce energy, that is incinerated. This is what we are going to change with our Systalen LDPE 3.0 To date, it has been used in different film products, but is now also being implemented in stretchable hoods used for securing during transport, a very sophisticated product. I am grateful to our partners Nestlé and Duo Plast for their courage as entrepreneurs supporting this project, which is indispensable for the circular economy of plastics – and especially for reaching the quota for the use of recyclates that will be required by the PPWR”, says Jörg Deppmeyer, managing director at Der Grüne Punkt.