OPACKGROUP and Morssinkhof-Rymoplast have applied a 50%+ post-consumer recycled stretch sleeve to a recycled PET bottle and cap in a bid to achieve full circularity.
Made of at least 50% post-consumer recycled raw material, OPACKGROUP’s stretch sleeve is designed for high-quality recycling after use. It is applied over a recycled PET bottle without the use of an adhesive – a move intended to combine shelf appeal with improved separability and recyclability.
At end-of-life, the bottle enters municipal recycling and is delivered to Morssinkhof-Rymoplast. There it is processed into flakes, and air separation or ‘wind shifting’ is used to separate the lightweight sleeve fraction.
Next, the sink-float separation process takes advantage of differences in the flakes’ density. The sinking PET flakes are separated from the floating sleeve and cap fractions.
Since no glue residues remain, the washing process results in a clean PET stream for use in high-quality applications. Washwater contamination is also reduced.
The LDPE fraction from the stretch sleeve is recycled into new plastic raw material. The cap is also processed into new applications – a cap-to-cap solution is currently in development.
In similar news, ALPLA and CCL Label recently developed a stackable, recyclable PET beverage can with a full-body shrink sleeve. CCL Label’s EcoFloat shrink sleeve is made from low-density polyolefin and separates from the PET flakes during the recycling process.
Sidel and Arpanon have also launched a new ultra-lightweight 600 ml bottle that is 30% lighter and 50% less energy-intensive than its previous version. In addition to developing the bottle, Sidel also created a complete production solution for the product using its 36,000 bph Combi line, which integrates blowing, filling and capping into a single system.
