01 July 2016

Editor’s note - reducing waste

Leading substrate manufacturers estimate that 60 percent of a self-adhesive roll is wasted between delivery to the converter and placement on the final container. We tend to concentrate too much on liner waste recycling and not enough on elimination of waste at the converter level.

Over-production is one of the biggest problems. New inspection technology – developed originally for digital presses – allows the press operator to see a running count of good labels, allowing the press to be stopped when the total label count is reached. Inspection and quality control is carried out on the press, before bad labels are produced.

More waste occurs because of lack of information flowing between end user and converters. If end users are unwilling to share scheduling information, orders are called off at short notice, with all the inefficiencies that entails. And converters are still holding too much customer stock. With the rapid changes in the legislative and marketing environment, this is often obsolescent stock.

At a time when the self-adhesive industry faces potential legislative threats around liner waste, any progress we can make towards waste reduction at the plant can only help the wider cause of defending the industry.