CCL’s EcoStretch wins German Packaging Award

The German Packaging Award is one of the most important showcases for packaging innovations in Europe. It takes place under the patronage of the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, with an independent jury awarding the best innovations in 1tencategories.

EcoStretch is a new technology that enables the post-consumer de-inking of printed stretch sleeves. The sleeves are removed from the bottle after the PET bottles are returned to the filling lines of the producers. They are then shipped to the Austrian Voelkermarkt site, where, after the de-inking and cleaning, the sleeves are molten and shaped into pellets fed back into the manufacturing process, thus creating a new stretch sleeve in a closed loop.

‘We are very proud to have been awarded the prestigious German Packaging Award in the Sustainability category. CCL has been pioneering sustainable product decoration solutions for its labels and sleeves for many years now. We invest a lot of time and resources into making packaging more recyclable with a smaller environmental input – so of course, it is great for the whole team to see this being acknowledged,’ commented Reinhard Streit, vice president, and managing director of CCL Food and Beverage.

CCL is part of the Global Commitment of the New Plastics Economy, which is led by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. The company announced its plans to invest in recycling technology to recycle post-consumer stretch sleeves in a closed loop last year.

‘Making our labels and sleeves and the packaging they go onto more circular is a priority in the next years. We are excited that we will be the first ones in the industry to offer a circular solution for stretch sleeves. In addition to re-using and recycling the bottles themselves, customers can now choose to fully recycle the labels on the bottles into new ones,’ concluded Streit.