top of page

Recycled Content Materials. Once a filler, now a booster.

 

While bad quality recycled (of course not to be confused with recyclable) materials, used to have a bad name for simple reasons like their smell or bad looks, not to mention lack of required mechanical properties, recycled content in many products is now a global trend, and will remain so. Retailers all around the world, while recycled content was a taboo, nowadays advertise the presence of such materials in their packaging. And to no surprise consumers respond in a positive way, if the product's properties are not featuring aspects of the negative past. Recycled content can be added to the raw material, as a decision by the client, starting from small percentages up to very high contents. This also depends on the application, finished product colour limitations and other factors. The bottom line is that RC used to be something not talked about, while now it is positive marketing.

Will and Mentality

In order to lead a product for recycling, apart from incentives given, like financial payment for collected material, the necessary condition is the suitable state of mind to collect it, keep it and have the patience and organizing to dispose it at the correct point.

Specifying and Implementing

Retailers and Final Users (Chains), should design policies which contain the use of recycled raw materials, in both carrier bags (charged, free, semi-reusable or reusable) as well as reusable bags (like in the case of RPET bags made from recycled bottles). In this case it is recommended that at least part of the quantities of carrier bags are produced with a percentage of recycled content, and at least part of the stocks of reusable bags are made from recycled bottles.

Infrastructure and Programs

Governments and Private Organizations provide recycling points at which products can be disposed with the purpose of the material to be processed and used for manufacturing of a new product. In packaging, recycled content carrier flexible bags, disposable, reusable or semi-reusable, can be manufactured with recycled material starting from small and up to large percentages of recycled content.

Message and Communication

In turn, the messages should be comminicated very strongly and clearly on the bag, and stating this property, as a considerable advantage and environmentally friendly policy, as no extra raw materail resources are used, only processing resources. It is in many cases advisable to communicate this message at a very prominent point of the packaging product, and this can be combined with encouragement messages to reuse the bag as many times as possible, to add us to a product that is both made of recycled content and reused numerous times. 

bottom of page