Article from CCOSSMA.
Author: John Ferro, John Ferro, Vice President, Marketing,
Silgan Dispensing, Richmond, VA, USA
In the beauty and personal care space, sustainability is top of mind across the industry. While this isn’t necessarily a new area of focus for brands, technology continues to evolve, giving them more options and capacity to deliver the sustainable solutions their customers expect. Post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastics are one of the best examples of this.
Beauty and personal care brands have struggled to reconcile the durability and customization plastics offer with the need to source environmentally friendly materials. PCR plastics solve this either-or dilemma. Yet, over the past few years, PCR has remained limited in its colour availability and use in multi-component dispensers. Consumers have made it abundantly clear, their desire to see a brand’s commitment to sustainability factors into their purchasing decision. Thirty-seven percent of millennials check packaging labels for sustainability and 52% of consumers are willing to pay at least ten percent more for products with sustainable packaging, according to Asia Pulp and Paper. According to a Lifecycle Analysis study completed by Franklin Associates in 2018, polypropylene (PP) PCR requires 88% less energy to produce than virgin PP. It also uses 46% less water and generates 71% less greenhouse gases. These types of resultsare the reason why so many brands have targeted a minimum of 25% PCR material in their plastic packaging by 2025.
How much PCR?
Beauty and personal care companies want more products that are recyclable and come from recycled sources. At this point, however, there is a lot of confusion about many products’ sustainability credentials. PCR can be visually indistinguishable from virgin resin, especially with a broad offering of colours. An important consideration for brands is to provide on-pack consumer communication about the percentage of PCR in the packaging. This is increasingly regarded as a best practice by organizations such as the brands still refer different colours in order to attract attention on the shelf. Moving resin from a dark grey base to a white or bright yellow is not possible today, but other, darker col-ours are feasible. For those colours that are available, an important consideration is consistency. Variation in colour, even so light, can diminish a brand’s reputation among consumers. It took significant time working with different PCR materials to determine a colour palette that can offer consistently. In Europe there are 80 custom colours available that give brand owners significantly more choice. To consumers, sustainable packaging is more than a ‘nice to have’; it is something they are demanding of beauty and personal care brandsmore and more. PCR products give the brands an innovative way to meet this growing consumer need, while also helping achieve their own sustainability goals.Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) that continue to advocate for more consumer education about end of life recyclability, as is seen with its How2Recycle program. The boundaries of what is possible with PCR in dispensers are continually being tested. While use of PCR is becoming more common for one-piece standard closures, implementing PCR in multi-component dispensers is much more technically challenging, especially when coupledwith not wanting to compromise on the performance of pumps and sprayers. So, each component should be tested with PCR and qualified to determine which pieces are candidates or using the material.
Evolution of colour availability
Raw PCR generally comes in shades of grey, black, or even brown. While these raw colours represent authenticity of PCR to some brand owners, most beauty and personal care brands still refer different colours to to attract attention on the shelf. Moving resin from a dark grey base to a white or bright yellow is not possible today, but other, darker colours are feasible. For those colours that are available, an important consideration is consistency. Variation in colour, even so slight, can diminish a brand’s reputation among consumers. It took significant time working with different PCR materials to determine a colour palette that can offer consistently. In Europe there are 80 custom colours available that give brand owners significantly more choice. To consumers, sustainable packaging is more than a ‘nice to have’; it is something they are demanding of beauty and personal care brands more and more. PCR products give the brands an innovative way to meet this growing consumer need, while also helping achieve their own sustainability goals.
SPOTLIGHT: GREEN CONCEPTS
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