Technically advanced materials and pEPR

How material selection can help you fulfill your responsibilities

There are some obvious ways in which materials selection helps companies to reduce their environmental impact and therefore their pEPR obligations.  However, there are also some lesser known gains to be made.

Below our Sales Director and flexible materials specialist Josh Gibson takes us through the considerations manufacturers can explore for their own operations.

Although companies have now been reporting their level of packaging use for their consumer goods and its disposal route for a little while, the introduction of the fee requirement later this year is further focussing the industry on this significant subject.

Materials choice can affect the pEPR requirement within all three elements of this legislation:  the volume of packaging waste, the base material and the material’s recyclability.  It’s the first of these where gains can be made but where producers often have less knowledge about their options.

One key way to reduce overall packaging material use, and therefore packaging waste, is to specify ultra-thin materials.  These technically advanced materials are designed to deliver the same strength at a lower micron than standard materials, ensuring that there is no compromise on product protection.

YPS supplies a range of materials that fall into this category, manufactured by leading specialist flexible film producers Bolloré, all of which are the thinnest film of their type in the market.  Examples include:

• 15 mμ lidding films

• 9 mμ shrink films

• 6 mμ stretch films

We have worked with customers who have been able to reduce material use by as much as 74%, by replacing their previous material specification with these ultra-thin alternatives.  With the new charge of £423 per tonne of plastic packaging, for an operation using 10T each year, with this level of saving their obligation would be reduced from £4,230 to just £1,099.

Another route to reduced materials use is to ensure that your machinery is functioning at its best.  Our team of in-house packaging engineers always thoroughly check and test machine set up when they install new machinery supplied by YPS.  It’s also an element that they check when they service existing equipment or conduct Site Sustainability Surveys, which is a service we provide that is focussed on achieving further gains in this area.

For much of the automated packaging systems that we supply – certainly shrink and stretch wrapping systems – the basic material will be plastic, without the option to specify material in a different category or fee level.  The exception for us is the automated bagging systems we supply, where paper can be used attracting a fee of £196 per tonne, less than half that for plastics.  This is the case for both horizontal and vertical bagging systems.

The detailed material specification can affect the final element of the legislation – the recyclability.  Monomers, plastics with a simple single molecular structure, are much simpler to recycle than polymers, plastics with complex structures.  In this way, understanding the technical composition of alternative plastic materials can lead producers to make a more informed decision and provide a more recyclable pack.

As recycling labels are now mandatory under this legislation, it will become clear to consumers which products have easily recyclable packaging and which don’t, potentially leading consumers to prefer the more recyclable option.

YPS is a member of the OPRL organisation who we recommend as experts in all aspects of product recyclability labelling.  They advise on pack recyclability and methods of improving this aspect, as well as being a resource to create the correct finished labels.

For producers looking to explore the most advanced flexible materials, our team are always happy to discuss what’s available and how it fits with producers’ products and environmental targets.