Bought, drunk and off to the recycling container. Glass wants to be preserved as a raw material for recovery. But have you ever wondered what happens to the labels on the beverages when they are recycled? Recycling is only feasible if labels and beverage containers are made of environmentally friendly materials and adhesives. The good thing is that there is now a huge selection of eco-friendly labels available.

What are sustainable labels?

Everything is labeled, from the packaging of your milk, the bottle of beer or the cool lemonade from the kiosk. The little information stickers encourage us to buy and make the contents palatable.

With the colorful labels on the beverages, you also help to pass on important information to interested customers. Best-before dates, nutritional information, and service information are clearly displayed on the labels of the beverages without having to be laboriously engraved on the glass bottles. This makes them the perfect ambassador for your message to the customer.

Durability is what counts

Environmentally friendly and sustainable labels are only useful for beverages, of course, if they do their job. They must adhere securely, be robust for transport and sale, and withstand moisture.

There is no shortage of environmentally friendly alternatives to conventional labels. On the contrary, the list of modern and sustainable materials that environmentally conscious producers are using to make labels for beverages today is as long as it is impressive.

Such materials are characterized by low CO2 emissions during production. They are made from environmentally friendly and renewable raw materials. With low water consumption during production, they protect one of our most important goods on earth. They are tear-resistant to save material with thin labels for beverage and product packaging. Many of the new materials are even completely compostable.

Incredibly creative - these are the innovative materials for beverage labels

One way to improve the eco-balance of your labels is to use fully recycled materials from post-consumer waste. As beneficial as it is that you don't consume any new resources with these recycled materials, it's important to check that the source materials are also environmentally friendly.

Natural raw materials for your beverage bottle and container labels stay ahead of the game. They grow in fields or literally lie by the wayside in a climate-neutral manner.
 

Cellulose	Sugar cane	Stone	Grass
The upper material of compostable labels is cellulose (wood pulp). Such labels are biodegradable and you can even throw them on the compost with a clear conscience. You can easily transfer your advertising and consumer information with a thermal transfer printer. The transparent or white high-gloss film of the face material for a true-color, high-contrast appearance is also fully degradable.	Sugar cane is used to make labels for beverages, the functions of which are very similar to conventional PE labels. You can recycle the plant-based polyethylene film just like you recycle any other PE film. The only difference is that these labels for beverages are made from environmentally friendly and renewable raw materials.	Waterproof and robust are labels made of stone. To ensure that the labels flexibly adapt to the shape of the beverage, they consist of a powder of ground stones. This is mixed with 20 percent recycled polyethylene (PE) as a binding agent to create a paper-like surface. As before, you print the stone labels using a thermal transfer printer.	Grass is another raw material that is ideal for recycling. The virgin fiber paper consists of 50 percent each of grass fibers and pulp, completely free of chemical additives. Grass paper is suitable for all common paper applications. In addition, grass is a rapidly renewable raw material.

The importance of the adhesive for compostability

Your labels with advertising messages and important information on ingredients and filling quantities have a long way to go. To ensure that the labels survive the journey from production to the consumer, the adhesive has to do a good job. It ensures that your labels adhere firmly to beverage bottles, packaging, and crates.

For reliable adhesion of paper and film even to smooth, moist, greasy and heavily stressed surfaces, the chemical industry is skillfully playing out its innovative capabilities. With new environmentally friendly ingredients, they are replacing tried-and-tested adhesives, some of which still contain harmful components - which over time can even cross over from the labels into the beverage packaging.

It is therefore not enough to choose compostable packaging. The adhesives for the labels in beverage filling must also be adapted to compostability. You can already find labels for beverages with an adhesive that is biodegradable according to EN 13432. These adhesives are already 90 percent decomposed in an industrial composting plant after 90 days. You can tell that an adhesive complies with this standard by the protected symbol of a seedling.

A number of certification processes for adhesives are currently underway in accordance with the French NF T51-800 standard, which certifies that a material, in this case the adhesive for your labels, is home and garden compostable. This means that your customers can dispose of the beverage labels with such an adhesive, together with the packaging, which is also compostable, directly on their own compost heap in the garden.

Modern customers pay attention to the overall eco-balance of their products and are quickly willing to switch to sustainable alternatives. This behavior offers great potential - both for customer retention and new customer acquisition.

Benefits of sustainable labels for our environment

Protecting our environment is a daunting task. The topics of waste avoidance, recycling, reuse, reforestation and the use of renewable energies are in vogue. But more than big words, customers hear your actions. Through your interest in nature-conscious labels and their use, you show your customers how sparingly you use valuable resources.

Sustainable labels help protect the environment in several ways: through their eco-friendly materials, economical manufacturing process, easy recycling, and easy compostability. Many of our eco-friendly labels help your customers achieve their goals for:

• Waste reduction
• Sustainable forestry
• Use of rapidly renewable raw materials
• Chemical free production
• Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions
• Reduction of water and energy consumption

Labels for beverages produced from sustainable forest ry differ from conventional variants in that the forestry operations are certified. PEFC- or FSC-certified foresters undertake to plant only native tree species and always leave an appropriate proportion of deadwood in the forest.

Benefits of environmentally friendly labels for consumers

Discarded plastic is now forming new rock formations as so-called beach rock. Scientists from the Ocean Cleanup Foundation have discovered that the Pacific garbage whirlpool is now four times the size of Germany. Against this background, the issue of environmental protection is clearly moving into the consciousness of many consumers. What is often lacking are sufficient offers that fulfill consumers' desire for a resource-conserving approach to the environment.

Supermarkets often offer only a few alternatives. Nevertheless, even environmentally conscious consumers find it too much trouble to go to one of the few unpackaged stores, especially since many beverages such as sodas and beers are not available there in the first place. These consumers are happy to have readily available food and beverages that come in environmentally friendly, compostable packaging.

Sustainable labels that advertise these benefits underscore your holistic environmental commitment and build trust. This way, environmentally conscious consumers can enjoy their favorite beverage with a clear ecological conscience.

Your advantages as an entrepreneur

With sustainable labels, the beverages from your production enjoy clear competitive advantages. Environmentally friendly labels offer your customers not only a visual but also a haptic experience.

The soft-touch surface of the completely vegan stone paper invites you to stroke it. Grass labels for your drinks feel subtly rough and charming. Sugarcane-based PE film labels, on the other hand, are completely smooth. Real wood labels from certified sustainable forestry are paper-thin sliced wood, complete with natural knotholes.

With the wide range of eco-friendly labels for beverage packaging, you can cleverly emphasize the best features of your product. In addition, you support your brand image as a sustainable company. This goes down just as well with your customers as it does with potential employees who are looking for a company with a sense of ecological responsibility.

Due to the fact that many different materials can be used for the production of labels for beverages, you get interesting choices. You can choose the sustainable labels that best fit your product, your corporate image and your environmental efforts.

Conclusion: Consumer-friendly sustainability continues to gain in importance

Consumers are paying increasingly closer attention to the holistic life cycle assessment of their products. Sustainable labels for beverages are gaining in importance and are already a major competitive advantage.
Whether made from grass, sugar cane, wood or stone, eco-friendly labels fit seamlessly into your existing production processes. If you're still unsure, just talk to us and we'll be happy to help.

FAQ

1. How do I print sustainable labels for beverage packaging?
   Theenvironmentally friendly labels are now very mature. They come with high-gloss, matte or no coatings at all. Many are easily printable with a thermal transfer printer. You can then simply continue to use your existing printing system.

2. What is the correct way to dispose of organic labels?
   Allbeverage labels labeled as compostable can simply be placed in the organic waste bin by your customers. This is how the labels get to the industrial composting plant and decompose there. Packaging and labels made from bioplastics belong in the yellow garbage can. This waste is shredded and processed into recycled plastics.

Do you care about the environment and want to exchange ideas? Then contact us!