While pressure-sensitive labels can be challenging to remove from plastic bottles in the recycling stream, one company appears to have come up with a solution.
The Kennedy Group’s PureVue label was recognized last month by the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers (APR) for exceeding the requirements of the group’s APR’s Guidance Document for Pressure Sensitive Labels. The labels, tests have shown, are easy to remove, float in water and do not bleed — three key indicators of a recycling stream-compatible label, APR points out.
“The Kennedy Group has taken a huge step in helping to generate good clean material available for recycling, and for working with the industry to ensure their innovations are compatible with existing recycling technology,” John Standish, APR’s Technical Director, says in a press release.
Pressure-sensitive labels have been notoriously difficult to remove in PET recycling streams, with inks known to bleed and floatability a huge question mark. Through a variety of initiatives, APR is working to promote label designs that foster marketability while proving to be readily removable from PET bottles.
Four other firms — American Fuji Seal, Avery Dennison Corporation, Plastipak Packaging, Inc. and Polysack Flexible Packaging Ltd. — were also lauded by the group for labeling innovations last month.
