INGEDE Press Release 2/2008: Perforation improves recyclability

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Press Release 2/2008

Sealed Advertising now with Perforation:

INGEDE and Deutsche Post Develop
Better Recyclable Plastic Film Wrappings

Magazine Publishers Shall Follow the German Mail Suit

A bundle of advertisement flyers, wrapped in polythene foil, is dropped in many mailboxes in Germany every Saturday. The inserts are accompanied by a free television guide – a brilliant marketing idea of “Deutsche Post”, the German Mail. This safeguards jobs by assuring mail delivery on Saturdays, but in the paper mill this bundle creates recycling problems: The wrapping protects its contents yet also from being recycled in the paper mill, leaving the recycling plant in the form of plastic-wrapped sludge.

Now, at least one problem has been solved. A perforation of the film wrapping allows the bundle to break open in the recycling process so the paper fibres can be washed out.

Film wrapped advertisement and magazines have already created more and more problems for the paper mills. In the pulping part of the mills, where the recovered paper ought to be suspended with water, often the plastic films remain unharmed and save their contents through the process, at best a little moistened. And the mills have to pay twice: once for the unusable raw material, once more to dispose of the wet and thus heavier plastic-paper lumps.

With the Deutsche Post (German Mail) advertisement "Einkaufaktuell" the problem of polythene film wrapped advertisement gained in importance: Every weekend up to 17.6 million households find the insert bundle in their mailboxes. Some of the recipients throw away the whole bundle – without removing the wrapping.

Looking for ways to improve the recyclability of these packages, INGEDE suggested testing a perforation of the film. Deutsche Post seized this suggestion providing test samples to investigate the behaviour in the paper mill. Several tons of perforated and unperforated samples have been tested in the meantime. The result: The perforation indeed allows the film wrapping to break in the recycling process so no paper is lost. Still the problem remains that the mill has to dispose of the plastic film – among other waste that already contaminates the recovered paper.

Now the Post advertisement is distributed almost all over Germany with the new perforated wrapping: A little blade with a large effect complements the packaging lines. INGEDE expressly appreciates this development. “Recovered paper as a raw material is too valuable; we cannot afford losing these amounts”, says Dr. Ulrich Höke, chairman of INGEDE. "Magazine publishers shall now check this development and use for their products if possible."

Film wrapped computer magazines with supplements such as DVDs, childrens’ magazines with toys shrunk into the plastic or discretely sealed adult journals that found no buyer at the newsstand – it is mainly the still unopened returns that create problems in the paper mill. A perforation might help here as well: either in the paper mill, if the films break here in the process just like the “Einkaufaktuell” wrapping. Or even before – when buying recovered paper, the mills in fact request sorted paper without contaminants. One knack on the way from the distributer to the paper trade to the paper mill might open the film and separate it from the paper.

Separation is also what the Post in Germany aims at: They hope that more consumers open the bundle and dispose of plastic and paper separately. And if it is easier to open, it is more likely to be read – this might also increase the acceptance of the advertising product.

INGEDE is an association of leading European paper manufacturers founded in 1989. INGEDE aims at promoting utilisation of recovered graphic paper (newsprint, magazines and office paper) and improving the conditions for an extended use of recovered paper for the production of graphic and hygiene papers.

8 April 2008

Links:

This press release for download

Picture collection station "Einkaufaktuell" (jpg, high resolution, 1 MB, source: Deutsche Post AG)

Picture perforation blade (jpg, high resolution, 2 MB, source: Deutsche Post AG)

Website of "Einkaufaktuell"

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