Grass paper, offers excellent credentials, using 97% less energy and 99% less water, while offers CO2 savings of around 25% when compared to a standard wood pulp processing, however the "colour" and "finish" of this product we would guess are hurdles to this product becoming widely used. To confirm, this product is NOT biodegradeable or compostable. 

(Grape, Marble and other options are also available, however these are a route to offering products from sustainable sources rather than offering the same resource savings.) 

Several manufacturers are now able to supply "compostable" adhesives on semi gloss and "Eco" Thermal papers along with some some filmic products, however, while we have supplied some labels already, these options are currently expensive, the raw material around 3 - 4 times the cost of equivalent "standard" products. We are sure, that once the demand grows we will see an improvement in pricing. 

Material produced from recycled paper, PE etc, are more widely available, one offering of a semi gloss paper,is also supplied on a backing produce from 15% recycled product, these have lower MOQ and are less price sensitive, some with very little increase on a standard material.

Linerless technology / labelstocks are also coming to the market, the feeling around these is that they are aimed at the high volume runs, currently they will also need to be applied through applicators made to suit each material, so investment is also needed in applicator lines. So, these options could be expensive, but would remove the waste backing paper, which due the silicone is hard to recycle.         

It is fair to say that more options are talked about and "we" need to start using and supplying labels produced from some of the above, something we are currently looking at.

Carbon Capture & FSC - For our most of our none adhesive materials, we are now offsetting carbon via the Woodland Trust carbon capture scheme, while from January 2020 we will be FSC approved / compliant. 

New Arrivals - 

Its a new year, and we are looking forward to some new arrivals here, firstly a new anilox cleaner, this should allow better colour consistency and less "down" time. 

Next a new re-winder, which is a direct replacement for one of our old machines, and while will improve efficiency, more importantly, will make the operators life a little easier.    

It does though have the capability to use 19mm I/D cores, something we have struggled with before.