As brands and converters strive to lower their carbon footprint, label and package printing suppliers have been tasked with delivering products that promote sustainability. Avery Dennison has unveiled numerous facestocks and adhesives to better enable recycling throughout the value chain.

Matt Wilkinson, technical sustainability manager, Avery Dennison, recently joined L&NW to explain how the Mentor, OH-based company has emphasized recycling during its R&D. To learn more about Avery Dennison’s environmental initiatives and greenhouse gas emissions, listen to a podcast with Wilkinson here.

L&NW: How has sustainability factored into Avery Dennison’s R&D, and what are some of the newest products that promote recycling?
MW: Sustainability is a key driver in how we approach product development at Avery Dennison. We do this in several different ways, including our 2025 sustainability goal to have 70% of our sales revenue from our Sustainable Advantage portfolio. We also have 2030 commitments to dramatically decrease our carbon emissions including in our products and have been collaborating with a cross functional team to identify opportunities to reduce the emissions impact of our product portfolio.

Sustainability is incorporated in product design and in our decisions on whether a project should be resourced and prioritized. Customer demand and the emerging regulatory landscape around plastic packaging has driven Avery Dennison to redefine what our innovative products will look like in 3-5 years.

Over the past year, we’ve launched several new sustainable products that promote recycling. Avery Dennison is the first to offer CleanFlake Technology on all film labels, enabling and advancing rigid plastic recycling. Regardless of application, AD CleanFlake Technology offers excellent performance on all types of packaging — making sustainability the easy choice.

We recently announced our  metallized films with AD CleanFlake technology have been recognized by the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR) for HDPE and PET recycling. We are the first to be recognized for offering a portfolio of metallized label solutions capable of working with the recycling systems to enable rigid plastic recycling.   

Earlier this year, we also introduced four new facestocks to our Wine and Spirits Sensorial Collection. All four are 70-pound wet-strength facestocks that employ 30-100% Post-Consumer Waste (PCW) paper.  

L&NW: What has Avery Dennison done to promote the recycling of its materials?
MW: We launched the AD Circular program, which connects converters and brands with vetted recycling providers throughout the US who can offer opportunities for landfill diversion, recycling and circularity.

We also have an exclusive agreement with Mitsubishi Chemical’s Polyester Film division in North America. Through the agreement, Mitsubishi will offer a closed-loop process for PET liner recycling, helping to increase the recycled content in PET liners supplied to Avery Dennison and the industry. 

L&NW: What are some of the newest label recycling trends you’re seeing?
MW: There has been a large push from the CPGs to include RFID technology in their packaging for supply chain and cradle to grave tracking. This has spurred questions around the recyclability potential of adding passive RFID chips to packages. We have seen a large call to action in major North American trade organizations to generate recycling data and determine if innovation is needed. This also has potential implications of using RFID for more efficient sorting and tracking in the recycling industry.

Additionally, we have seen the start of using AI in conjunction with existing robotics to increase efficiencies in recycling facilities. Using AI can see an increase of 10-30% in recovery rates in some cases. As with most AI applications, this is still in its infancy, but exciting to see where it will take the recycling industry.

De-lablers are becoming mainstream at recyclers, too. As recycling processes and infrastructure continue to evolve, we have de-labers becoming more commonplace in the process flow.  This allows recyclers to remove large amounts of decoration that in the past, would need extra muscle to be filtered out via the caustic wash and float/sink process.   

In an effort to meet upcoming EPR and PCR legislation, there has been a strong push by the decoration industry to include bio-based and PCR content in their raw materials.  There are still many hurdles in supply, but the ball has started rolling. 

L&NW: What are the challenges needed to overcome with recycling, both in the industry and at the consumer level?
MW: One of the biggest challenges that face recyclers is designing packaging for recycling. It is imperative that brands and packaging engineers leverage solutions that enable the recycling of packaging. This means using recognized solutions and doing the due diligence to verify the package as a whole is a sum of its parts when it comes to recycling. 

On packaging labeling for consumers is also another challenge that needs to be addressed.  Packages that are designed for recyclability should be clearly labeled so that consumers can quickly and easily know how to recycle that package.

Plastic (EPR/PCR) regulation, while not a challenge in and of itself, has been passed in multiple states. It is important to work as a cross-functional, cross-industry team to make sure that politicians are getting the correct data to make informed decisions.

Educating and incentivizing the consumer to recycling is an important step in raising the efficiencies and recycling rates in North America, as well.

L&NW: Where do you expect to see recycling in the future?
MW: We expect to see rising rates of recycling. Legislation, technology advances, and CPG sustainability goals should lead to an increase in collection and recycling and a more efficient process into PCR resin.  We would also expect this to drive the circular economy.  As supply starts to catch up to demand, we would expect to see more PCR and Bio-based sources in packaging.

We expect to start to understand the impact that extended producer responsibility (EPR) legislation will have on the entirety of the supply chain. CA, CO, OR and ME have EPR bills that have passed, with plans to implement falling between 2025-2027.  Getting an understanding of how these will eco-modulate the bad actors will dictate how brand design for recycling and circularity and how that impacts the industry.