Your Guide to Creating the Most Eco-Friendly Labels
If you want to reduce the environmental impact of your products, you need to consider every part of them, including the labels. Eco friendly labels aren’t just recyclable stickers. To reduce your products’ impact on the environment, you need to account for several factors:
– Is the label made with sustainable materials?
– Does it interfere with container recycling?
– Does the choice of materials reduce the total energy and resources used during manufacturing?
– Does it reduce the pollutants released into the environment?
– Does it take into account real world recycling access and consumer habits?
Pressure sensitive labels offer great flexibility, because every part of the label from the adhesive to the top coat can be chosen to fit the application. This also means you have a lot of choices to make. Here’s how choosing each component affects the ecological impact of your labels.
Choosing Paper Face Stock for Sustainable Labels
When it comes to recycling, paper face stock is the best choice for metal and glass since it burns easily during the recycling process.
Paper labels can also be recycled alongside other fiber products, including paperboard and cardboard. There are several options for cellulose sources, as well as sustainable and recycled material options that reduce the environmental impact of product label manufacturing.
Certifications for sustainable fiber harvesting are handled by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Both industry groups use chain of custody certification: for labels to be certified, every previous step of production must also be certified, from harvesting to printing.
Both groups offer different certifications based on the percentage of sustainable material. FSC also certifies recycled paper, while a third party verification can be added to paper that uses a mix of recycled and SFI-certified virgin paper.
“Tree free” papers use cellulose from agricultural waste products or fast growing plants. These plants include hemp, cotton, sugarcane and bamboo. The U.S. Hemp Authority offers a certified paper program for hemp-based paper, but similar programs aren’t in place for other paper types.
Despite its name, stone paper has more in common with plastic than paper. This paper is made with a combination of calcium carbonate and polyethylene. Manufacturing stone paper uses less water than pure paper or plastic labels, but recycling of this limestone-based paper isn’t readily available. The overall performance, including water resistance, is on par with pure PE labels.
Choosing Labels that Work with End-of-Life Recycling
Post-consumer waste recycling collects a mix of renewable materials, then sorts them using near-infrared scanners. Thick labels and metalized surfaces can interfere with scanning, causing the system to reject containers.
When sustainable packaging is recycled, it’s shredded and placed in a caustic water bath. The bath dissolves adhesives and separates labels from the plastic flakes. Labels approved for PET recycling have a density that is lower than water. This lets the label material float to the top of the water tank, while the PET sinks to the bottom.
Thin polypropylene (PP) film is the most popular choice for these containers. Paper isn’t approved for PET recycling, because it falls apart and can’t be filtered out of the bath. The fibers mix with the PET flakes and burn during forming and extrusion, reducing the quality of the recycled plastic.
Thin film PP is also the best choice for HDPE containers. Mixing small amounts of PP in with HDPE doesn’t affect the quality of recycled plastic.
If you can’t use a recyclable face stock, choose a recycling-compatible adhesive that makes it easy for consumers to remove the label before disposal. While there’s no way to guarantee compliance, it increases the likelihood that your containers will be recycled.
Improving Recovery and Reducing Waste from Label Liners
Half of the material that makes up a pressure sensitive label is the liner that protects the adhesive before application. No matter which reel size you choose when you buy one or our machines, the total thickness of the liner has a big impact on the total number of labels you can fit on each reel.
The most popular liners are PET, SCK and PK. PET is the most common choice for liners, thanks to its low cost and low thickness, allowing more labels to be squeezed onto each reel. Fortunately, PET is easy to recycle. SCK, another popular choice, is based on kraft paper, and is compatible with regular paper recycling. PK is SCK with an added layer of polyethylene. This liner is stronger, reducing breaks, but it can’t be recycled with paper.
Linerless labels have a face coating that keeps labels from sticking to each other when they’re placed on the roll. This coating is usually water and UV resistant, improving the label’s overall performance. Eliminating the liner also increases the number of labels that will fit on each roll, cutting down on extra waste in your manufacturing process. However, linerless labels must touch at the edges to make a complete reel. Since they can’t be die-cut, these labels are always rectangular.
Choosing Greener Adhesives
Water-based adhesives use water as the solvent, instead of harsh chemicals that release VOCs. These adhesives are compatible with a wide range of surfaces, including glass, plastic and metal. They’re also easy to remove from packaging materials during recycling. These adhesives do dissolve when exposed to moisture, so they’re not ideal for all containers.
Plant-based adhesives use natural and manufactured materials based on plant matter, including latex, starch and tar. These adhesives are usually non-toxic and biodegradable.
Biodegradable adhesives can be divided into two categories. Repulpable adhesives dissolve in water, so they don’t leave residue on paper labels when they’re recycled. Compostable adhesives that meet ASTM D6400 break down in a compost pile in 90 days or less. Most products that aim for compostable packaging get third party verification through the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI). BPI only grants certification if the entire container, including the label, is compostable.
Reducing the Environmental Impact of Ink
Pigments are made from a wide variety of natural and man-made materials. Natural inks, which only use natural, sustainable pigments, are slowly gaining headway.
There is little difference in performance between standard and natural inks, making it one of the easiest changes you can make to create eco-friendly labels. The biggest natural ink advancement in recent years is algae-based black pigment. It replaces carbon black, the most widely used black pigment, which is derived from fossil fuels.
Most modern inks use water or soy-based carriers, which are sustainable, and reduce the release of VOCs. Soy-based inks are the most popular, thanks to their low cost and high-quality rub resistance.
Get a Flexible Solution that Makes it Easy to Upgrade to Eco-Friendly Labels
There’s a lot to consider when designing eco-friendly labels. Whether you’re going for compostable labels or recyclable labels, the little details matter if you don’t just want to add more waste to our landfills.
If you want consistent label application with the flexibility of pressure sensitive labels, contact CTM Labeling Systems. We have local distributors that will analyze your production system and create a labeling solution that fits your eco-friendly products and your manufacturing needs. Our labelers support multiple configurations, so they can adapt to different label sizes, package sizes, and even new label manufacturing technologies.
