AUSTRIA – Global specialty packaging pioneer CCL Label has developed what it claims to be the thinnest stretch sleeve on the market at a 30-micron thickness in a bid to cut carbon footprint.
According to CCL Label, the sleeves are made of mono-PET that has a high degree of elasticity.
This means that no adhesives and no heat is necessary to apply the sleeve to the bottle or other container – it attaches itself and stays in place with the help of its own elasticity.
In addition, it is possible to integrate different percentages of recycled content into stretch sleeves from several sources – including Post-Consumer Recyclate (PCR) material.
Thorsten Umek, product manager at CCL Voelkermarkt said: “This extremely thin stretch sleeve was developed with sustainability in mind.
“With 30 microns the sleeve is a lot thinner than the ‘standard’ 45-micron sleeves that are usually used. This accounts for efficiency on the material side – a lot less raw material is needed to manufacture this sleeve and thus it helps reduce the carbon footprint of the product.
“We calculated that beverage brands can save up to 32 tonnes of plastic material per 100 million sleeves – which is approximately the weight of over 5 adult African elephants.”
Stefan Schaeffert, business development manager at CCL Label notes: “Stretch Sleeves have been a popular decoration technology for the German mineral water industry that traditionally has been a returnable scheme.
“Typically, reusable 1 Liter bottles made from rigid PET and increasingly rPET are used – which already is a very sustainable system itself.
“Now the bottle can have an even lower environmental footprint by combining it with the super thin stretch sleeves that we just launched.”
The new product comes two months after the company unveiled its EcoFloat shrink sleeves, the first-ever approved shrink film material for the South African beverage market.
The launch followed a successful trial in the country by PET recycling specialist Extrupet and has been approved for the local recycling system.
CCL said that the launch of its EcoFloat shrink sleeves marked the arrival of the first approved shrink sleeve decoration solution for the PET beverage market in South Africa and will help boost recycling rates in the future.
In 2021, the company launched a closed-loop recycling solution for stretch sleeves involving the post-consumer de-inking and cleaning of printed sleeves, which are then melted into pellets and re-manufactured into new sleeves.
For all the latest packaging and printing industry news from Africa and the World, subscribe to our NEWSLETTER, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, like us on Facebook, and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
