Label design and manufacturing company Avery Dennison will work with raw materials supplier Sabic to supply a label material made, for the first time, from recycled polypropylene. The new, food-approved material is aimed at addressing both today’s brand owners’ requirements and the latest regulatory and legislative developments.
PP is widely used in, among others, the food and cosmetics segments, PP labels made from recycled material can make a major contribution to sustainability. The chemical recycling process used to make rPP means it has the same characteristics as conventional material.
Mechanical recycling may become possible in the future, once a collection stream for PP has been established. In addition, the bi-oriented polypropylene (BOPP) used for labels is extremely challenging to produce from a mechanical recycling process.
“The chemical recycling process for PP is an important step forward for the labelling industry,”said Mariya Nedelcheva, product manager rigid film EMEA, Avery Dennison.
“We have come a very long way with adding recycled- and sustainably-sourced products to our portfolio and polypropylene is a very important addition,” said Rob Groen in ‘t Wout, senior marketing manager film EU for Avery Dennison Label and Packaging Materials.
The new material is produced via feedstock recycling (pyrolysis) of mixed post-consumer plastics waste within the scope of Sabic’s Trucircle initiative. Sabic presented the initiative for the first time at K2019, calling it an important step to ‘help close the loop on plastic recycling’.
Closed-loop recycling of plastic would see post-consumer plastic waste collected, recycled and used to make new products. It requires close cooperation between consumers, retailers, recyclers and manufacturers to make it work – in other words, a total transformation of the value chain.
Sabic’s new Trucircle solutions encompass the company’s circular materials and technologies including certified circular polymers from the chemical recycling of mixed plastic waste; certified bio-based renewable polymers; new polycarbonate (PC) based on certified renewable feedstock; and mechanically recycled polymers.
In the present project between Avery Denison and Sabic, the full value chain - the film supplier, Avery Dennison, the converter, and brand owner - need to be ISCC chain-of-custody-accredited to use resin from SABIC to make the rPP feedstock, so that the material is certified as a ‘circular polymer solution’
According to Rob Groen in ‘t Wout, the pilot project between Avery Denison and Sabic will make the new material available during 2020