CCL Label, a world leader in specialty label, security and packaging solutions, and Henkel announced today that they have won the AWA (Alexander Watson Associates) Award for their Best in Class Sustainable Design for Henkel’s Vernel brand fabric softener bottle.

AWA stated “The design was applauded for emphasizing recyclability and adhering to EPBP guidelines. The container, constructed from 100 percent recycled PET bottle materials and a low-density polyolefin sleeve, is designed for easy sorting and recycling”.

To improve the recyclability of the PET bottle bodies of its fabric softeners in Europe, Henkel partnered with CCL who has developed a new generation of floatable polyolefin material for shrink sleeves called EcoFloat®. This low-density material can be separated from PET bottle components during the sink-float separation process at recycling facilities. While the heavier bottle material sinks to the bottom of the water baths, the lightweight sleeve material floats to the top, even with full printed designs. This enables a clean separation of the PET and the label material, which is necessary to gain high-quality PET recyclate.

“The bottle body of our fabric softeners in Europe already consists of 100 percent recycled PET. Using the new sleeve material, they are now also designed for recycling,” said Abdullah Mahmood Khan, Head of Global R&D Packaging for Fabric Enhancers at Henkel. “Many consumers don’t remove the sleeve before discarding the bottle, which mostly means that the bottle cannot be recycled either. We have now found a solution to enable the recycling of our bottle bodies in this case.”

Lukas Nachbaur, Account Manager Henkel at CCL Label, adds: “The collaboration with Henkel is a great example of what can be achieved by matching the product decoration with the primary packaging – making it a perfect fit for design for recycling. When Henkel was looking for the most sustainable solution for their Vernel bottle – we recommended EcoFloat, because it supports the recycling process of the PET bottle in every way”.

“When it comes to sustainable packaging decoration, we strive to be the industry leader – and we are proud to see this acknowledged by industry experts like AWA. The ‘Sustainable Product Family’ is our portfolio of sustainable solutions for labels and sleeves that enables our customers to chose from different options, depending on what their sustainability goal is”, says Marika Knorr, Head of Sustainability & Communication at CCL Label. “It is an integral part of our sustainability roadmap and we make sure that our products are in line with the official design for recycling guidelines of organizations like RecyClass in Europe and APR (Association of Plastic Recyclers) in the USA”.