We endeavour to be as sustainable and environmentally conscious as possible – our Carbon Charter Gold Award is testament to this. One question we are often asked by customers is “are your labels recyclable?” While we’re pleased companies are increasingly showing an interest in the sustainability of what they’re buying, we thought we would take the opportunity to explain a little about what goes in to our products, and how they can be recycled.
The answer? In short, yes. Our multi-page labels with paper base and paper leaflet are 100% recyclable. The small amount of adhesive that is used doesn’t stop the base label being recycled, as it is such a small amount. The ink that we use also doesn’t prohibit the product from being recyclable.
Our bespoke glue system makes us the stand out choice in the industry when it comes to sustainability, as several competitors simply don’t have the capability to create recyclable multi-page labels. Instead, they often rely on laminate to hold the product together, which makes it non-recyclable.
Multi-page labels can also reduce the number of SKUs, reduce inventory, and ultimately reduce wastage. A key benefit of choosing Denny Bros is our products are made in a very energy efficient factory, which runs on 100% renewable electricity. If we’re not getting our energy from the sun, we are getting it from a hydro electric supplier.
It’s a common misconception that our wet peel and ‘peel and reveal’ labels simply cannot be recycled. In fact, the ones made entirely of Polyprothene are 100% recyclable. In 2022, we launched our recycled wet peel product ahead of the launch of the Plastic Packaging Tax. Due to the nature of these products, they all currently contain some sort of synthetic material. However, there are recyclable options.
Mixing materials together makes them hard to separate and therefore difficult to recycle. The recyclability of products can become slightly more complex when they are made up of more than one material, for example when laminating the front cover of a paper leaflet. Typically, if the laminate used weighs less than 5% of the entire product then it is still deemed recyclable, but we are always happy to discuss this further.
There is a long-term trend that label material manufacturers will start to supply paper and Polyprothene which have at least 30% post-consumer recycled content (PCR). 30% is notable because any plastic packaging with over 30% PCR in avoids the plastic packaging tax. We intend to ensure that our web materials will have more and more recycled material in them going forward.
Talk to the multi-page label experts on 01284 701381 or click to contact us.
