Sustainability and circular economy in manufacturing labels

Sustainability in its simplest terms means, giving back to Mother-Earth or environment, society, or economy, whatever you draw from it. It ultimately delivers a message for us to leave a safer planet with minimum or no depletion of resources, for generations that follow, after meeting your own imperative needs. Let us for example consider just paper. Long years ago, with development of paper, there was  a lot of promotions to increase its usage, but then it was realized that paper production was hugely dependent on wood and increased usage meant deforestation. It is an accepted fact that forests are very important for a healthy environment and climate. It was on this realization that a lot of emphasis started to be put on avoiding unnecessary paper usage. Even now responsible company emails have a footnote advising not to print unless absolutely necessary. On the other hand, there are statutory directives to paper mills to aid afforestation so as to increase the forest cover and replenish the amount of wood extracted. However still, usage of paper is sustainable when produced with implementation of replenishing the inputs used. Moreover, the paper waste is re-pulpable to again produce paper or paper board aiding circular economy. Production of all manufactured goods and services should avoid or reduce using resources that cannot be replaced and whose depletion will adversely impact the environment. As mentioned above, paper is mostly produced from wood whose extended use in paper production leads to deforestation. For this reason, a lot of manufacturers do a life cycle analysis of products to achieve a level of sustainability.

Brand owners and large label user companies have now started insisting on FSC certified paper usage. Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is a globally recognized certification system that ensures that the forests are managed sustainably. Products that are manufactured from responsibly harvested forests are identified with the FSC logo, which is considered the “gold standard” of forest certification by major environmental groups.

Circular economy

Circular economy also referred to as circularity and CE, refers to a type of process for  production and consumption, which conforms to reusing, repairing, refurbishing or recycling materials and products. Since CE helps in reducing raw material requirement, carbon footprint and aids sustainability, it has gained popularity. It also helps in conservation of important resources. For an example of CE, milk pouches are made of mono polymers like LDPE for packaging which is easily recycled or reprocessed to again convert to plastic granules that can be remolded into usable plastic products. On the flip side, multi-polymer multi-layered film pouches are not recyclable and end up in landfills impacting environment adversely as they also do not biodegrade. However, there is work being done to develop processes that will enable these also to be recycled. The government of India is actively formulating policies and promoting projects that will drive the country towards a circular economy system. It is estimated that a circular economy path adopted by India could bring in annual benefits of 40 lakh crores or approximately US$ 624 billion in 2050.

Labels

The material for labelstock consists of many elements and sustainability cannot be in the total laminate, each component must be sustainable and contribute. The self-adhesive label laminate primarily consists of face stock with or without a primer or lamination, pressure sensitive adhesive and siliconized release paper or film. To be sustainable each element must be dwelled upon separately. The life cycle of each of these is different and an analysis needs to be done in-depth to make decisions towards achieving sustainability goals. Climate change and environmental concerns have now become issues that cannot be ignored and need to be attended to, at national and global levels. With increased statutory government directives to reduce carbon footprint and make sustainability an imperative, manufacturers are under pressure to re-engineer their products and their packaging. Leading brands have committed themselves to sustainability and circular economy to reduce their carbon footprint. Labels also being  a part of packaging must be designed to achieve maximum level of sustainability and circular economy. FMCG brand owners are now preferring packaging solutions that will enable them to achieve decrease in their carbon footprint ensuring recycling of packaging material which is environment friendly. It is thus necessary to dwell on the different components of self-adhesive labels and their diverse usage. In India Avery Dennison has launched a matrix and liner recycling program to aid these needs. The liner collected from converters is sent to a company who repulps the liner mixed with wastepaper to produce tissue for shoe industry or other paper board items. The matrix is converted to briquettes and used as fuel.

Face materials

The label face material is the actual performing part of the label that after application stays with the product during its entire lifecycle. Variety of substrates are used to be the label depending on its performance and aesthetics. These can be papers that are either coated or uncoated, plastic films or other materials. Even paper labels laminated with films are in use. Unlaminated paper is, as such, largely re-pulpable and converted to become recycled paper or paperboard to be reused but here we need to understand that in case of self-adhesive labels, paper alone does not get affixed to the product, it has an adhesive with it. The final label with the adhesive goes on to the product while the waste matrix after die-cutting in converting is waste that often goes to landfills impacting the environment adversely. It can also be shredded and molded as pellets or bricks to be used as fuel. To that extent we can consider the waste matrix sustainable as it is put to constructive use.  However still, the label that is affixed on the product has to be disposed along with the adhesive and the package it is on. So, we need to use special adhesives for the label to be re-pulpable in case of use on paper based packaging, or removable or washed off for recycling, when applied on reusable glass containers. We dwell on adhesives later in this article. Going backwards label buyers also have started insisting for their vendors to use FSC certified papers. FSC® or Forest Stewardship Council® certified paper is paper that has been harvested in a responsible manner. FSC stands for sustainable sourcing that puts forests and people first.

In case of filmic labels besides adhesive, it is another issue with worldwide movement against use of plastics wherever avoidable. The reason for this is that plastics are largely not biodegradable or non-compostable, so they are not ecofriendly. With EPR becoming mandatory in India, companies are constantly trying to use materials that can be recycled or reused. According to EPR or Extended Producers Responsibility,  which is the responsibility of Producers, Importers and Brand-owners to ensure processing of their plastic packaging waste through recycling, re-use or end of life disposal (such as co-processing/Waste-to-energy/Plastic to-oil/roadmaking/industrial-composting). The impact is evident from the fact that most companies are shifting towards paper based packaging or even paper based self-adhesive tapes. Many filmic labels are based on mono polymer PE, PP or PET so if they are used on bottles made with same polymer these can be recycled provided the adhesive is compatible. Some companies have been making changes in manufacturing to improve the recyclability of product packaging and look at ways of reducing carbon footprint.  New films, made with 30-50% post-consumer recycled material or made with biobased materials, are offered that aid the circular economy and reduce the use of fossil based packaging while reducing carbon footprint. Some of these films available are fully compostable. Specially designed thinner films that are converted to  be used for highspeed labeling are being preferred as using less material, is a good step toward sustainability.

Adhesives

Often when assessing the sustainability of a packaging, people tend to overlook the impact of adhesives that are an inherent part of the package. An adhesive that may hinder the recyclability or maybe non compostable will become a setback for the efforts to make labels and stickers sustainable. An adhesive must be chosen, such that it will comply with end-of-life process to recycle and reuse or be compostable. With advancements in technology, adhesives are derived from either natural or synthetic raw materials. A general perception, that adhesives formulated with natural inputs may be sustainable and those made from synthetics are not sustainable, is not true as a rule. Both types of adhesives can be developed and formulated to perform and yet conform to sustainability. It is important to study and select adhesive for labels based on your need. Let us for example consider self-adhesive beer labels in returnable glass bottles. In this case the adhesive should be compostable and easily washable to separate from the glass bottle for the bottle to be washed and reused while the label in the water can also be separated, recycled or dispose without adversely impacting environment. In case of PE bottles with PE labels, the adhesive should be compatible, such that it can be shredded granulated along with the bottle for remolding.  For each application the selection of adhesive is important.

Release liners

Over fifty percent of self-adhesive labelstock used for manufacturing labels or stickers  is generated as waste in converting. This is a known and accepted fact. The waste, more often than not, goes to landfills impacting environment. The release liner that protects the adhesive until the label is dispensed and applied, forms a major part of the waste generated. Since many years companies have been looking at options to either do away with the liner or reducing the waste generated by the liner. Paper based liners form more than 80% release liners used for self-adhesive labels. The paper-based liners include Glassine, SCK, CCK and Poly coated papers. Linerless labels have been considered and used for some years now but due to growing need for better aesthetics, die-cutting complex shapes and embellishments, they have limited use. To reduce the tonnage of liner waste going to landfills as a sustainability endeavor, there has been talk of reducing the caliper/grammage of liner used but not much headway has been made in this direction.

In India and Europe, glassine is largely used as the preferred release liner and accounts to over 70% of all paper liners used. For long, release papers were not considered recyclable due to the silicone coating which after crosslinking becomes inert. However with development in technology, some companies in Europe and USA  developed a de-siliconization process after which the paper can be processed to reproduce base papers for siliconizing. In the process, siliconized liner is repulped in water containing chemicals to release the silicone and remove the small silicone particles like in the process used for deinking of repulped printed papers. The de-siliconized pulp can then be used to produce new products, such as fine and specialty papers like release liner, label face, writing and printing papers. Thereby achieving circularity.

There has been substantial growth in use of filmic liners that are thinner and can take more labels per roll. The residual filmic liner can be recycled, enabling circularity. To achieve an elevated level of circular economy and sustainability, “CELAB” (Circular Economy for Labels),  was set up by 50 industry-leading companies representing the entire value chain that have come together to create a sustainable pressure sensitive labeling industry by offering solutions and providing education to enable matrix and liner recycling. It is an ad-hoc coalition empowered to reach across the entire supply chain and leverage the expertise of industry participants to promote a circular economy for self-adhesive label materials. CELAB’s members comprise industry members both large and small, and with both global and regional market presence. It also includes companies up and down the value chain of the matrix and liner industry. According to CELAB, “Like many other grades of film, silicone coated filmic release liners are recycled by regrinding the film into chips/pellets which can then be mixed with ‘virgin’ polymer and re-introduced to a film extrusion line for production of new polymeric film.”

Self-adhesive or pressure sensitive labels industry was at one time considered to be generating waste that was polluting the environment but gradually all-around efforts are driving in sustainability and recyclability. It is a matter of time the processes will evolve and the industry will shed the waste generating tag and grow.

Written by Harveer Sahni, Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi-India January 2023

 

 

Labelexpo Americas 2022: Joy in togetherness after a hiatus

It is a famous saying, “absence makes the heart grow fonder”! The last labelexpo held as a globally attended event was “Labelexpo Europe 2019” in Brussels, and while writing about the event on this blog, I titled it as Labelexpo Europe 2019, the best ever! I had started that article with the words; “From the word go, Labelexpo Europe 2019 was a vibrant and happening show!” and so it was. Each year a multitude of visitors from various segments of label industry  which include printers, suppliers, consultants, media and label users make a beeline for this august show, wishing it to be bigger and better than before . Little did anyone know or visualized that the humanity will go through a traumatic time of life termed as a “pandemic.” If all goes well, it will be four long years before the next Labelexpo Europe may be held in Brussels in 2023, a show that is referred to as the Mecca for the international labels community. The past three years have witnessed immense human suffering, many lost their lives and there were a vast number of businesses that suffered. Post a gigantic global drive to vaccinate the world population against the terrible virus Covid-19, normalcy started surfacing and businesses started limping back to life. The announcement of Labelexpo Americas was welcome news but there was still an air of caution about getting infected because the virus had not been completely eradicated. Labelexpo Americas is a much smaller event as compared to the European event. The yearning by the labels industry to venture out again to witness the new developments and network with global peers in the widespread labels industry surfaced and finally the American event turned out to be a remarkable success. At the Labelexpo Americas 2022, the joy in togetherness after a hiatus of three years was evident!

Label Industry Global Awards 2022

https://youtu.be/_7DLJvRYkUI 

In the evening of the first day of Labelexpo Americas 2022 The Global Label Reunion Party 2022 was organized and the Label industry Global Awards were announced. The winners were chosen by a judging panel consisting of Lori Campbell, chairman of TLMI, Linnea Keen, president of TLMI, Philippe Voet, president of FINAT, Greg Hrinya, editor of Label & Narrow Web, James Quirk, then group editor of Labels & Labeling, and Jean Poncet, editor-in-chief at Etiq+Pack. The chair of the judging panel was Andy Thomas-Emans, strategic director Tarsus Labels & Packaging Group.

As previously announced, the winner of the 2022 R. Stanton Avery Global Achievement Award is Harveer Sahni, the author of this blog. The judging panel felt Harveer meets all the criteria for excellence demanded by the industry’s most prestigious award for an individual’s contribution to the growth and development of the global labels industry. His history in building a company to manufacture self-adhesive labels in India, through to his central role in building the Indian label association and then acting as an influential ambassador on the world stage, all helped the judging panel to come to their decision. He was introduced by the TLMI President Linnea Keen who conferred the award to him. Speaking on the occasion Harveer Sahni spoke of his journey in labels and the lessons he learnt. His speech can be head on the following link;

https://youtu.be/ySJ_9JhSHFg

Other winners announced are as follows:

The Rising Star Award went to Stijn Billiet, Global Sustainability Director, MCC Label. Stijn joined MCC in 2020 and made an immediate impact bringing sustainability onto the agenda of the business. Early 2021 he presented a roadmap for all global production sites to reduce their carbon footprint, guiding the Belgian facility to carbon neutral production. Stijn represents MCC in its collaboration with organizations such as Holy Grail, RecyClass, APR, and CELAB. The judging panel felt Stijn has demonstrated clear potential to be a future leader and is already a strong voice within the labels industry.

The Environmental Sustainability Award was won by Flint Group Narrow Web, for a new line of products designed to enable more sustainable packaging. The first product in the series, Evolution Deinking Primer, when used with Flint Group EkoCure XS inks, enables deinking of crystallisable shrink sleeves, allowing the clean sleeve label material to be recovered and recycled into PET packaging. The judging panel felt that the Evolution Deinking Primer makes a major contribution to developing a circular lifecycle for label materials.

The Innovation Award for companies with over 300 employees went to Actega for its Signite decoration technology. Utilizing the latest in UV-curable chemistry, Signite decorations are created entirely on press, eliminating the need for the laminated constructions used in traditional pressure-sensitive label production. Signite decorations are built in register with the graphics and label content, so there is no die cutting and no matrix to dispose of. Signite decorations are applied with a specialist inline applicator developed by Actega, initially for glass straight-walled containers. The judging panel felt this to be a step change in the way label decorations are produced and a major contribution to industry sustainability.

The Innovation Award for companies with under 300 employees was awarded to S-OneLP for its ReEarth compostable flexible packaging films. ReEarth films have achieved ASTM D6400 commercial compostability standards and are both BPI and USDA Biopreferred certified. A compostable print film, adhesive, and sealant layer make up this laminated structure that can be surface printed with digital or flexographic technologies. The judging panel felt that with more label converters diversifying into flexible packaging products, a fully compostable solution is a great aid to future packaging industry sustainability.

The Rising Star award is sponsored by Avery Dennison; the Environmental Sustainability award is sponsored by Labels & Labeling; the Innovation Award for companies up to 300 employees is sponsored by Flint Group Narrow Web; and the Innovation Award for companies over 300 is sponsored by Xeikon.

Labelexpo Americas 2022

Defying the caution and scare of Covid-19 visitors travelled across continents to witness the ample display of technologies and solutions at the event. There were a lot of live equipment running and there was a sense of fulfillment amongst the visitors. The show was vibrant and a wonderful precursor to the biggest of them all, “Labelexpo Europe 2023 at Brussels”. I reproduce pictures of my walk through the show.

Lisa Milburn MD Tarsus Labels group

Dougles Emslie Group CEO Trasus

Linnea Keen President TLMI

Omet team with Paolo Grasso (Actega) 

Geoffery Martin Global CEO CCL Label

Christian Menegon Business Dev, Mgr HP

Marco Calcagni Sales Director Omet

Ramon Lee MD Brotech, Keren Bec and Leaf Zhang

Natalia Tsamorina at the Cartes Stand

Mark Andy/Rotoflex Stand

Written and compiled by Harveer Sahni Chairman, Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi and recipient of R. Stanton Avery Global Achievement Award 2022 September 2022

Price increases leave printers in a dilemma!

The adverse impact of lockdowns has not really worn off when a very awkward situation is now confronting the labels and printing industry at large. Prices of paper and all essential inputs are moving skywards disrupting the cashflows that appeared to be getting back to normalcy. It is a strange situation whereby there is a volume growth in demand and reduced availability of pulp and other materials coupled with compulsion of paper mills to recoup the losses incurred due to lockdown, driving up the paper prices. Stuck in between, the label and printing industry is compelled to swallow the increases with intense pressure on their operating margins and working capital requirements. The phenomenon is evident globally, as paper sellers are directing supplies to wherever they find a bigger demand around the world and can command higher prices. There are also logistics challenges owing to shortage of containers. One wonders if this surge in demand is real or there is an element of stockpiling. If it is the latter, it may result in a market crash once the normal working returns that would be even more worrisome. It is mentioned by analysts that the present spurt in prices is due to increased demand coming from China’s domestic consumption increasing dramatically. Surely these are unprecedented increases happening leaving a premonition of adversity amongst the printing and packaging fraternity.

The price increases in paper are coming continuously at regular intervals of time. Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) which is one of the largest pulp and paper company in the world, wide their notification dated 22^nd  January 2021 increased prices of all grades of paper by 100$ per ton then on 1^st February 2021 they increased the prices by another 100$ per ton and also withdrew the reel discount they were offering, yet again on 1^st March 2021 they increased the prices by yet another 150$ per ton. With such a steady rise on monthly basis, one is left wondering when and where this will stop. SAPPI another global supplier of label, packaging and specialty papers, on 3^rd March 2021 announced an increase of 7-11% in prices. In the case of labels, both the face stock and the release paper have suffered cost escalation. Vinyl Acetate Monomer or VAM is an important part of pressure sensitive adhesives used for manufacture of self-adhesive labelstocks and tapes. Owing to a whopping increase in demand from China VAM prices also witnessed a continuous upward trend to reach an increase of more than 20% so far in 2021. This too directly impacts the cost of producing self-adhesive labelstock and eventually labels.  Many polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) producers in Texas USA have shut plant operations because of the winter storm in mid-February 2021 sending prices of films  upwards due to shortages. This increase in prices of polymers directly impacted price of label films and filmic labelstocks. The increase for different films varies between 12-25%.

As if the raw material price rise was not enough the varying demand across different geographical zones in the world and shift in purchasing pattern of populations around the globe brought about a huge impetus to online retail business. This resulted in a logistic change of transportation from established routes and volumes causing disruption of smooth flow of materials and altering the planning for container needs. All this led to increased freight rates, coupled with increasing fuel prices the ultimate impact on the end product keeps on escalating.  It is surprising that such an unprecedented upward revision of all inputs in one go has never been witnessed before in the labels industry. The labelstock manufacturer is squeezed between the large raw material suppliers and the printers who are themselves under intense pressure of high equipment cost and facing print buyers who are not willing to increase buying rates. More so, considering that increasing number of label printers are bidding for the same business and are always ready to compromise a bit more, the situation is complicated.

Gautham Pai

Gautham Pai founder and Executive Chairman of Manipal Technologies Limited Manipal, expressing concern at the situation prevailing says, “The price increase of raw materials is significantly impacting the business. In addition, the supply chain disturbances and logistic cost increases have added to the overall costs increases. These increases at a time when buyers are still struggling with low demands and muted orders is a major concern.” U K Gupta Group Chairman & Managing Director, Holostik Group also feels, “Price increase in paper, solvents and adhesives have impacted the Label Industry badly”. Indian Labelstock producers have steadily grown in numbers and size as the industry registers double digit growth over the last many years. The industry players have gradually transformed from being manufacturers of  just commodity stocks like semi-gloss and uncoated wood free or maplitho to advanced specialized label materials, both coated, uncoated, filmic and specialty products like security label materials. Since all inputs in labelstock manufacturing have been adversely impacted and spreading the effect to the entire self-adhesive label industry, Ajay Mehta Managing Director of India’s largest indigenous labelstock manufacturing company SMI Coated Products Pvt. Ltd. brings forth the reality that the industry is facing by expressing, “The price rise in all raw materials of Label Stock solutions have gone up tremendously and we have to pass it on to the Label converters and unless the  Label converting industry joins hands, to take immediate action in getting a price rise from Label buyers , the Industry stands to loose INR 250 million per month, which is going to be extremely detrimental for the health of the industry”.

The pain and anguish at the emergence of this difficult unprecedented turn of events in words of, Ajay Agarwal, CEO of Syndicate labels New Delhi, “Price increase is nothing but a nightmare for the Label Printing fraternity and the biggest reason is that it disrupts the operations for all label Convertors. The process of transmission of the rate increase to the end customer is extremely difficult and is often characterised by a new round of negotiations, reverse auctions etc. and most likely it results in reduced margins for the label convertor. While price increase is a reality and need of the hour yet in face of the current increase in prices of raw materials, it still leads to a lot of pain.” Sharing the same concern, Himanshu Kapur Director, J K Fine Prints Pvt. Ltd. Mumbai agrees, “Price increase is a necessary evil for accommodating inflation, if done effectively it will benefit the entire supply chain else  operation will suffer long term. Unfortunately, the print buyers are also responsible for the collapse of an industry which was once an art form and now considered a commodity”. Rajesh Nema Director Pragati Graphics Indore and honorary secretary LMAI (Label Manufacturers Association of India), “Label industry is indeed facing tough times as cost of all inputs has gone up yet print buyers are not agreeing to price increases. Most of the self-adhesive label manufacturers are in yearly contracts with their buyers, it is difficult to make them agree to price increases during currency of the contract”.  According to Lakshminarayanan business unit head-Wintek at Signode India Ltd. : Impact of Prices is not only from raw materials, but it is also due to Inflation and logistics. There is  a strong demand for consumer goods and food packaging in the country. Nonessential packaging sectors is also regaining normalcy, but the price increases continue to challenge converters supplying due to their inability to pass on the  price increases to end-users, who in turn are driven by their cost pressures and not accepting to consider any price increase in current situation. Considering the greater need for working capital due to the steep increase in prices during recent weeks and the narrowing margins, inventory held by both converters and end-users remained below the average.

A brave Anuj Bhargava of fast-growing Kumar Labels NOIDA beamingly says. “Price hikes shouldn’t affect any organization’s normal profitability in the entire eco-system. All actions favorable to this intent should be taken so that a new equilibrium is arrived at with positivity” However he further adds, "that price hikes should be passed on so that profitability is not affected for anyone. New equilibrium is with revised prices for everyone.".

Kuldip Goel

LMAI President Kuldip Goel, Managing Director of Any Graphics NOIDA,  sums it up as a situation whereby in the covid times many in the industry have lost customers because when you take the increased price to them, your competitors who have their own pressures to strengthen their balance sheets so that banks are satisfied to lend more, are ready to offer without any profit or at a minor loss. Or if they have spare capacity and can retain their loyal customers they will attempt to take in new customers at unreasonable rates. It is not that the print buyer is not facing the impact of covid-19, the moment they see price escalation they will start exploring options to prevent the rise in cost of inputs. Printers at this time must evaluate as to how best they can handle the situation; price increase is imperative for them to sustain but then it needs to be seen how much of their business is dependent on that customer. One must strike a balance in price and cost optimization internally by trying to achieve more from their existing infrastructure and manpower. One must look within, reduce labour cost, wastages, save electricity, inventory control, and produce more with less.

At this time, the entire value chain is in jeopardy, each business product unit is customer of another, all constituents of the industry up to the print buyers need to empathise with their suppliers to bring some relief from this dilemma post continuous increase in input costs, that has descended on entire industry. It is appropriate at this time to mention a famous quote, “The journey is never ending. There's always going to be growth, improvement, adversity; you just got to take it all in your stride and do what's right, continue to grow, continue to live in the moment”.

Addendum: Messages received after posting the above article;

Aaditya Kashyap, Marks Emballage Pvt. Ltd.  Baddi; Already struggling to come back to normalcy from the pandemic-induced challenges, the increasing raw material pricing is like the last thing we could have wished for.  I see label printers in a very weak and vulnerable position completely squeezed out of business by increased prices from bigger players on the supply side and the dominant brands and buyers on the other hand who refuse to accept any price hikes. Would love to see that material manufacturers and suppliers work with printers to take the price hikes to brands and buyers. This is a difficult time for all, so need for all stakeholders to work together to find a win-win in this difficult times."

Rajeev Chhatwal, Kwality Offset, New Delhi: Very Strange Scenario no break on increasing RM prices. Business being run on negative profits!

Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi March 2021

Note: Print magazines are free to reproduce this article subject to giving credit to author with blog address

Labels: Sustainability, Environmental protection and Circular economy !

Almost forty years ago, when I was just a commercial siliconiser, people at large did not understand what release paper or silicon paper was. I would jokingly explain it was a product, a protective paper behind a sticker, that would eventually go into wastepaper basket. In real terms the release liner, would be disposed-off in landfills or burnt adding smoke and gasses to the environment impacting it adversely. Time has changed, concern for environment is a necessity and cannot be taken lightly as a joke. We are responsible for leaving behind a legacy of a cleaner and liveable environment for generations that follow us. We need to make our manufacturing programs, sustainable. Sustainability means giving back to mother earth what we take from it or reduce drawing the resources that we cannot replenish forthwith cut down generation of industrial waste. Unfortunately, 50% of all that self-adhesive label industry produces goes as waste in terms of waste matrix and release liners. While globally many endeavours are being adopted to reduce liner waste yet in India a lot needs to be done. Switching over to liner less labels where-ever possible, helps but not much work is done in this direction. Using thinner filmic liners does result in reduced tonnage of liners and their recyclability. During this period many a top-end printer has started using clear on clear filmic label materials aiding sustainability to some extent. Global leaders in Labelstocks Avery Dennison has initiated a program to collect and recycle silicone release liners in India, it is a step in the right direction. But given the size of the country and geographical spread of label units, it is a gigantic task. Other than this some printers have adopted waste management by shredding waste and compacting it for use as fuel in boilers and other applications, this is only a miniscule portion of the Industry. Largely, the waste is still sent to landfills or is incinerated. In times to come legislation will come to make sustainability and environment safety an imperative. It is time that the label and print fraternity at large must understand that not only the need but also the larger implications terms sustainability, recyclability, circular economy, environmental protection, etc.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action by all countries - developed and developing - in a global partnership. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go together with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests. The Sustainable Development Goal number 12 states; worldwide material consumption has expanded rapidly, as has material footprint per capita, seriously jeopardizing the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals. Urgent action is needed to ensure that current material needs do not lead to the over extraction of resources or to the degradation of environmental resources, and should include policies that improve resource efficiency, reduce waste and mainstream sustainability practices across all sectors of the economy. In our labels and packaging industry this is an imperative that needs to be attended to because the percentage of waste generated is high, going to landfills. Some companies do incinerate or send the waste generated as matrix or side trim to kilns for use as fuel. This may look good management but in the longer run we are putting gasses into the air from the different materials going into the manufacture of labelstocks viz.; paper, film, primer coats, silicone, adhesive etc. Each component will produce different type of emissions that have in unison no single solution to treat them. Thus, there is a need for reducing the waste generated, use recyclable materials, reduce the energy consumption etc. to become more sustainable.

The label industry globally has been looking at the possibility of recyclability and reusability of the waste matrix or that of the different components of labelstocks. Since release paper is one item that has its usability only until the label is dispensed to be applied on to the product, after that it ends up as waste. Over the years there have been many solutions tried to reduce the impact of this liner waste on the environment. The used liner would either go to landfills or incinerated and in both cases it its impact was adverse. Due to the silicone coating on the paper biodegradability in landfills was an issue as silicone after crosslinking becomes inert. For the same reason paper mills would not buy this waste for re-pulping and making fresh paper. Initial steps taken in reducing the liner waste were replacing the paper liners with thinner filmic liners thereby reducing the tonnage of paper and moreover the waste liner can be remoulded. This was a positive sign, but large-scale shift has not happened in a long time because of additional increased investment in equipment and tooling. There have been efforts to go linerless in producing labels but the inability to do custom shapes die-cutting and high-speed label dispensing on automatic packaging lines have not produced a lasting solution. Efforts and development in this direction are going on and we hope one day the industry can shift to self-adhesive labels without having release liners to dispose off, becomes a reality. At Labelexpo Europe 2019, four companies Ritrama, Omet, Spilker and ILTI came together to offer their “Core Linerless Solutions”, other companies like Catchpoint are also making strong efforts in this direction, only time will tell how many brand owners move in this direction and prompt their label vendors to offer the linerless label solutions. Some paper mills in Europe have now devised process of de-siliconising release paper and then re-pulping it to make fresh paper but the collection and delivery to the mills from the printing companies widely spread over large geographical locations is a logistic challenge. However still substantial volumes have started to be reprocessed. In India in recent times as mentioned above Avery Dennison has initiated support to a program in which collection of release liners is outsourced to a vendor and then sent to a mill who have devised a process to re-pulp and convert to paperboard. These are positive steps.

The menace of waste is gigantic and it has become an absolute emergency to counter it. Governments have woken up to act against generation of materials going to landfills. It is preferred that whatever waste is generated in industrial process should be gainfully recycled for usability to achieve the benefits as described in circular economy. As per a report published in thehindubusinessline.com of 19^th September 2019, leading consumer products companies such as Coca-Cola India, PepsiCo India and Bisleri among others have decided to come together to launch a first-of-its-kind packaging waste management venture in the country. The venture, which is called Karo Sambhav, will focus on creating a formal eco-system for collection of post-consumer packaging and optimising material recycling processes. Commenting on the endeavour, T Krishnakumar, President, Coca-Cola India and South-West Asia added, “Through our vision, World Without Waste, we want to ensure that all our packaging material goes for recycling and not to landfills.” Another report appearing in Live Mint 2^nd October 2019 states; The government may soon roll out stringent norms and impose heavy fines on corporates, including hospitality industry, mobile manufacturers and packaging industry, for failing to stop use of plastic. Under the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme, which the government plans to implement effectively, manufacturers, brand owners, and importers of products should realise and bear responsibility for environmental impact of their products through the product life-cycle. Many of the large FMCG companies have started adopting the requirements of EPR. These are other positive steps taken to eradicate waste to landfills to a great extent.

Besides the liner there is the waste matrix which has the adhesive and various kinds of face materials that include uncoated, coated, metallised, coloured, metallised papers, laminates or films with metallisation or topcoats. Side trims are also generated at some label converting units and most labelstock manufacturing units. With increasing prices of real estate besides an environmental issue, the side trims and matrix call for large amount of space to store until disposed off, putting additional pressure on resources. For this reason, larger label companies are shredding and compacting the waste to sell as fuel for boilers, furnaces and cement kilns. There are some innovative entrepreneurs who convert this waste into pallets, floor tiles, wall panelling and some small furniture items. It is interesting to see such endeavours.

Circular economy packaging is another buzzword when we talk of sustainability and environmental protection. A circular economy is an economic system aimed at eliminating waste, continual use and recycling of resources to re-engineer products that are preferably not downgraded. It is contrary to the earlier system “traditional linear economy” according to which the aim was 'take, make, dispose' model of production to achieve increased usage of all inputs. Labels are the face of any product and in time of growing organised retail and in view of stringent consumer protection laws labels provide the much-needed statutory information, besides becoming the marketing tool for any product. In such a scenario we need to design labels in manner that they are able, to be a part of recycling process of the package. For instance, on a PE (polyethylene) container we should have a PE label only so that the whole package is mono-polymer and can be effectively reprocessed and recycled. Multi-polymer plastics are neither recyclable nor biodegradable. It is normal in India that we see ragpickers collect the mono polymer milk pouches but leave behind the fancy multi-layered pouches of instant foods and snacks littered around. This is because the monolayer plastics are resaleable for convenient recycling. Similarly, a paperboard carton should have a paper label.

Sustainability or circular economy must be in the conscience of all manufacturers, it does not advocate compromising safety or user experience of any product. It also does not mean increased cost of inputs. It is a mindset to create products that make life sustainable and do not deplete resources available to humans. There is need to replenish what we extract from our environment and establish a legacy for generations that follow for staying committed to the cause. It is a cause that is impacting humanity across the globe and all efforts to make public of all races and countries aware of the situation and need to contribute towards this issue in unison are necessary.

Written By Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited, New Delhi India February 2020