Page 52 - FINAT Yearbook 2019

Sustainability
SUSTAINABILITY AND RECYCLING AWARDS 2019
One of the goals of FINAT is to promote the environmental sustainability of our industry’s products and processes, to share best practices and to encourage and reward excellence. As before, special focus is on stimulating the recycling of spent release liner materials. What’s the status since our previous report?
Mark Macaré hands out award to Jan ‘t Hart of Avery Dennison
RECYCLING AND SUSTAINABILITY AWARDS
Last year, FINAT made the decision to expand the scope of the recycling awards competition. From then on, we opened the competition to other initiatives to lower the environmental impact of the production and use of self-adhesive labels. This not only acknowledges the work being done in each part of the value chain, but also the increased demand for a more holistic approach from customers and consumers.
Focusing on how to produce labels more sustainably is a good start, but there is also a clear need to look beyond the border of our own industry and talk to the people that use our labels: What are their needs and wants? What can we do to ensure the labels improve or at least do not impact the environmental performance and recyclability of their products? What needs to be done to ensure ‘design for recycling’? It is exciting to see that several member companies are taking up the gauntlet. This is clearly
showcased by the entries to this year’s awards competition, but also by the technological innovations that will be on display at Labelexpo. As FINAT, we are building a portfolio of available solutions from the industry to help educate the end-users what we can offer.
The entries this year ranged from labels that facilitate PET recycling to label substrates made from 100% recycled PE, to substrate waste reduction efforts, the development of compostable labels and coatings that remove the need for
52 | FINAT YEARBOOK 2019