Adhesive Tapes Adapt to Support Evolving Packaging Sustainability Requirements
The rapid expansion of e-commerce and food delivery services in recent times has further fueled the growing demand for packaging. They offer several benefits like product protection, shelf-life extension of perishables, hygiene maintenance, traceability, and more.
In the past, the functional requirements of the product and the aesthetic needs of the brands largely dominated the thought behind packaging designs. Now, in the face of the packaging waste crisis, sustainability is a key factor, and demand for sustainable packaging solutions is significantly growing.
Packaging designs are undergoing a makeover, with the industry adopting innovative approaches to improve their green credentials. From eco-design concepts that enable reuse, refill, and recycling to the overall reduction of packaging used for a product, a lot is going on.
Adhesive tapes, thanks to their flexibility and highly functional nature, can adapt to support the rapidly evolving sustainability requirements of the packaging industry.
Before getting to specific examples highlighting the role of tapes as facilitators of sustainability, let’s first take a look at the packaging trends and sustainability drivers.
Consumer demand and regulatory pressure are the key drivers here. In Europe specifically, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) – set to come into effect in 2024 – will have a major impact on the packaging value chain. Along with several other targets, the latest revision of the EU legislation mandates that by 2030:
Each unit of packaging should be scaled down to its minimum size by weight, volume, and layers of packaging
Plastic packaging should contain a minimum % of recycled content recovered from post-consumer plastic waste (targets set per application type). As a result of these targets, the two emerging trends in the packaging and beverage industry are ‘minimisation’ and ‘paper-isation’.
Source: Packaging Europe