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The consumer is asking for ecological packaging. How is your company responding?
Discover the 100% recyclable floatable sleeves from Helios.
The requirements for the packaging of the future are all too clear. Sustainable, ecological and environmentally friendly. Aren’t the three things the same? Absolutely. Both consumers and the authorities want environmentally friendly packaging with a small ecological footprint during production along with easy recycling after use. Sustainable packaging is becoming the norm. At the same time, you as a company obviously also want to stay competitive with quickly manufactured, attractive packaging that makes your product stand out from the crowd and sell. But can all these expectations really be rolled into one form of product packaging? The ultimate keyword for the future of high quality, ecological product packaging? FLOATABLE.
Why is a ‘floatable sleeve’ ecological packaging?
Floatable refers to the floating nature of the packaging. It determines the recyclability of your products. Many recycling centres indeed use float tanks to separate the different materials.
Ideally the primary plastic packaging will sink and the secondary packaging (labels) will float on top. This is where the strength of the floatable sleeves literally rises to the top. A floatable sleeve is made of polyolefin. This sustainable packaging material distinguishes itself from PVC and PETG materials by its low density. It ensures that the label easily stays afloat so it can be simply separated from other waste. This makes the floatable sleeve a remarkably recyclable form of packaging.
Then floatable labels go yet another step further than the current generation of packaging. Up until now tear-off packaging was the environmentally friendly norm because this could be removed by the consumer after use and the materials arrived at the recycling centres separated. Floatable sleeves relieve households of this responsibility. The separation of primary and secondary packaging can now take place entirely at the recycling centres.
Floatable labels also retain the ecological advantages of our other sleeves. These include an adhesion-free production process and the option of using solvent-based ink. As this does not dissolve in water it will also not contaminate the recycling tank.
The ecological qualities of floatable sleeves will become increasingly important as environmental standards on sustainable packaging material continue to become more stringent. Such a unique material and production process make the floatable sleeve 100% recyclable packaging while ensuring that your packaging process is ready for the future. And there is more!
Energy-efficient and sustainable packaging with floatable sleeves
The low density of floatable packaging offers even more advantages as regards sustainability and energy consumption. You indeed need less material to produce the same number of sleeves. This results in lower production costs and lower CO2 emissions.
Your production also greatly benefits from floatable sleeves from both a financial and ecological perspective.
The technical possibilities of floatable sleeves
Floatable sleeves are therefore environmentally friendly. But at least as important is that your packaging makes your product stand out from the crowd and sell.
What are the design and production options for floatable labels? We can reassure you. Design options and production flexibility with floatable sleeves are at least a match for shrink sleeves.
Your product information, images and logos will be shown in razor-sharp detail. You also have a practically endless variation or combination of colours.
As regards production you can easily switch between single (1L, 2L, 10L) and multiple packaging just as with our other sleeves.
So aren’t there any differences between shrink sleeves? There are. Floatable labels will shrink a fraction slower in the steam tunnel and have maximum shrinkage of 56% compared to 80% for the shrink sleeve. But this is the only difference you will encounter during production when switching over from shrink sleeves to floatable sleeves.
Do you already use a sleeve machine in your production line? Floatable sleeves can immediately replace your existing labels without making changes to the equipment.
Are floatable sleeves already often used as sustainable packaging?
Although a small number of large international manufacturers are already fully utilising floatable sleeves, there are not yet many companies making use of this ecological packaging. The reason for this is the limited number of raw material suppliers. Helios is however a privileged partner of one of these manufacturers and can already offer its customers floatable packaging today.
