Not only has the blister packaging produced at the Offenburg tesa plant become more sustainable, but so has all the shrink film needed to package industrial products. Starting in the spring of 2023, this will no longer be made of the conventional 100% PE standard. Instead, 50% of it will come from PE-PCR, i.e. recycled plastic. The films mainly used for shrinking roll packs would have poorer shrink properties, so that a stable fully automatic process could not be guaranteed. This poses the risk of defects such as holes.
19 million 19 million blister covers are manufactured every year from recycled plastic at the tesa plant in Offenburg; they come in various sizes and shapes for around 350 different types of articles
Numerous experiments were needed to achieve a customized mixture of post-consumer recycling materials (PCR). After all, not all PCRs are alike. Different kinds of recycled plastic were tested using varying amounts of recycled material from consumer plastic waste and bottle flakes to make the resulting material as colorless as possible. The final result was a crystal-clear “green” product.
tesa is “Rethinking Material” to reduce the virgin plastics it uses in packaging – meaning non-recycled fossil-based plastics – by at least 50% by 2025. To manage this, quite a bit more straw will still have to be spun into environmental gold.
