Herma, Polifilm and schäfer-etiketten enter recycling project

‘This is a very promising project. It can effectively and substantially increase the recovery rate of household plastic packaging waste while at the same time improving the quality of the pellets produced during recycling,’ said Dagmar Glatz, who oversees sustainable packaging on behalf of dm-drogerie markt. ‘The concept devised by schäfer-etiketten, Polifilm and HERMA therefore addresses two key issues at once – waste recycling and the innovative use of recycled materials.’

Based on a Herma self-adhesive material and a Polifilm product, schäfer-etiketten has produced a PE label consisting entirely of post-consumer recycled (PCR) material recovered from milk bottles. Last year Polifilm, schäfer-etiketten and HERMA received the German Packaging Prize for another PE label that’s is also a completely recycled product but made from equal portions of domestic refuse and industrial waste. 

‘At present, polyolefin packaging is often recycled without the labels being removed, so that the recovered material contains printing inks, varnishes and adhesives as well. Quality shortcomings are therefore inevitable,’ explained Volker Hurth, the cosmetics key account manager for schäfer-etiketten. ‘In consequence, we can produce vast quantities of flowerpots and park benches from recycled materials, but continue to use virgin plastics or, at best, only small amounts of recovered materials in cosmetics packaging.’

The innovative Herma wash-off adhesive 62Rpw allows the labels to be washed off without leaving any residue so that they can be removed from the recycling stream together with the adhesives and inks.

‘This marks a highly significant step towards the recovery of high-purity pellets from shampoo bottles for example. It’s the only way of radically reducing the use of virgin PE and conserving resources,’ commented Dr Thomas Baumgärtner, managing director of Herma. ‘Last year we demonstrated the capabilities of our special wash-off adhesive in combination with PET bottles. We are now very proud to be offering a similar solution for other PE plastics.’

The relevant wash-off tests were performed on the premises of Sorema, a supplier of plastic recycling systems. Labelled PE shampoo bottles provided by dm-drogerie markt were comminuted and then washed at 70 degrees Celsius. In the next step, the plastic flakes and label film particles were separated by air separation. 

‘The tiny flakes were completely free of ink and adhesive, so that we were able to recover a high-quality raw material,’ confirmed Lorenza Lombardi, manager of the R&D laboratory with Sorema. 

‘We simply have to combine these two innovations with intelligent sorting technology, for instance using invisible barcodes or fluorescent markers,’ added Volker Hurth of schäfer-etiketten. ‘We have engineered a solution capable of genuinely enhancing the material cycle – provided that recycling operators switch from cold to hot washing for PE/PP. It’s already a matter of course with PET bottles, so that it must be worthwhile adopting the process for PE/PP as well.’