A recycling-friendly shrink sleeve? It’s happening!

We’ve been talking about it on the blog for quite a while now as it is one of the main concerns in the labeling world: recycling. Brands and consumers advocate recycling-friendly labels, or at least easier to recycle and a lot of new alternatives are emerging now.

Shrink sleeves are in right in the middle of those concerns and innovations are made every day to make these labels more “green”, while saving its impact on the shelves, its visibility, its design and all of its advantages.

In the UK, a dairy product just adopted a new shrink sleeve label which happens to be one more step toward a recycling-friendly shrink sleeve. What are its characteristics?

Why do most of the brands and products choose a shrink sleeve label? Because of the possibilities of an original design which makes the product more visible. This sleeve covers 360 degrees of the bottle, has a nice soft touch and a matte appearance. This way, the packaging reflects the great quality of the product.

All of these things, a “traditional” sleeve can offer it. The main difference here is the recyclability of the product. Indeed, most of the time, a shrink sleeve (in non-recyclable plastic) has to be easily removable from its package (which is recyclable). This new sleeve has a discreet twin perforation on the label to enable consumer to remove the label easily, without even deteriorating the appearance of the product.

As for the production, this shrink sleeve is also “greener”, as it is made of a 30% less dense copolyester. It also needs less material to be built and meet the same demands. The environmental impact is therefore less important, even more because it does not need a white coating as it is naturally white.

In other words, this new shrink sleeve label has a smaller impact on the environment while being more recycling-friendly. Here at IMS, we stay tuned with innovations and new solutions to be able to always offer you the best service.