With the imminent prospects that the COVID-19 pandemic will be sufficiently under control with the help of vaccines, Europe’s print industry, including ink producers and other suppliers, will be able to focus more on key issues affecting the long-term future of the sector.

Among these is how to respond to a European program, led by the European Union, to transform the region into a low-carbon economy to combat climate change over the next several decades.

A drastic reduction in emissions of CO2 and other global warming gases could require radical alterations to printing technologies and the formulation of components like ink.

But it will also open up big growth opportunities in certain parts of the sector, such as recycling, which is seen as potentially becoming a major source of secondary raw materials, cutting the carbon footprint of products like packaging.

“Sustainability will accelerate (this) year as environmental responsibility once again becomes a key focus for our industry,” said Bruce Munro, UK commercial director for papers and visual communication at Antalis Group, a leading substrates supplier.

On the regulatory and public policy side, there will be mounting pressures on manufacturing and service industries, such as retailers, to take steps to switch to low-carbon energy systems both in their own companies but also for suppliers and customers to do the same. Ultimately, they will be expected to become far less reliant on fossil-based materials, in particular petrochemical derivatives.

In December 2020, leaders of the EU’s 27 member states adopted a pledge to reduce carbon emissions by 55% by 2030 while sticking to an earlier commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 under the 2015 UN Paris Agreement on climate change. Most of the rest of Europe has also promised to make big reductions in emissions.

Packaging and Renewables

In the print sector, the main focus of attention of European politicians and consumers is packaging, where brand owners and retailers are expected to move increasingly to the use of renewables and in the longer term, recycled materials.

For ink producers, there is now a broad choice of renewable raw materials, although not necessarily appropriate for the making of inks, particularly for products like packaging.

Total vegetable oil consumption worldwide has been going up around 15% to 20% over the last five years, projected to reach 210 million metric tons in 2020/21.

The underlying strength in demand for vegetable oils was evident after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic when there was a quick bounce in vegetable oil sales.

In the second half of 2020, palm oil prices went up by nearly half, sunflower oil by more than 40%, soybean oil by a third and rapeseed oil by close to a quarter.

The steep increases also highlighted the continued propensity for volatility in prices of vegetable oil and other renewables. By contrast, crude oil prices, after decreasing by around a third in 2019/2020, were predicted to stay relatively stable in 2020/2021 with analysts predicting only a 10% rise.

Trends in the vegetable oil sector continue to be determined by biofuels – particularly supply/demand balances. Some analysts have been expecting price fluctuations this year because of adverse growing conditions, government taxes and supply chain interruptions.

Governments of leading producers are demanding higher proportions of vegetable oils be blended with vehicle fuels to reduce domestic carbon emissions. The result is a lower output share for vegetable oil exports and raw materials for oleochemicals.

Renewable crops are also the subject of increasingly stricter sustainability controls, which are closely monitored by international certification bodies.

The search has begun for more secure sources of non-fossil raw materials than agricultural crops. These include renewable hydrogen, which would be produced by electrolysis units powered by wind turbines and then used as a building block for making a large proportion of the base chemicals used today.

In the recycling segment, a lot of R&D effort is being directed at improving and developing technologies in mechanical recycling, which processes plastics and other products into secondary materials but without significant changes to their chemical structures.

However, large amounts of money are going into recycling systems that do alter chemical structures through pyrolysis or gasification to turn products and materials into oils, which can be used again as a raw material for other products.

The waste-to-chemical systems can form the basis for circular economies which the EU and national government aim to make into key parts of future national and regional low-carbon economies.

Chemical companies, plastic converters and a range of raw material producers are already creating businesses specializing in circular economy products and processes.
They see opportunities for growth in closed-loop schemes, particularly in segments like packaging.

It offers both challenges and opportunities to ink makers because of the need for “clean” ink in a circular economy, which must be toxin-free so that it is not contaminated when being recycled for a new life cycle.

One of the largest new entrants into the embryonic sector has been BASF, which announced at a virtual R&D press conference in December 2020 details of a circular
economy program.

“Companies that can provide solutions for the transformation to a circular economy will have a crucial competitive advantage,” Martin Brudermüller, BASF’s chairman and chief technology officer, told the meeting.

By 2025, BASF aims to process 250,000 metric tons of recycled and waste-based raw materials annually, to replace fossil raw materials in three main action areas: circular feedstocks, new material cycles and new business models.

Its longer-term target is to double sales of circular economy solutions to €17 billion ($20 billion) by 2030.

BASF speakers at the conference explained the advantages of waste-to-chemicals recycling in comparison to mechanical recycling.

With mechanical recycling, waste plastics are shredded and melted to make recyclate to make new products. Much of this material needs further processing. Otherwise, repeated use and processing can damage the polymer chains, causing the plastic to become brittle or yellowed.

However, a major drawback of mechanical recycling is that it is not suitable for dealing with mixed plastic waste. The main reason why only 10% of the estimated 220 million metric tons of plastic waste generated by the world each year is not recycled is that it is a mixture of different types of difficult-to-sort plastics.

The benefit of the thermochemical pyrolysis used predominantly in waste-to-chemicals processes is it can recycle mixed and unclean plastic waste streams. Also, according to BASF, chemicals made from pyrolysis oils are “indistinguishable from conventional products, so they can be deployed in the most demanding applications.”

These include even food packaging.

Circular Recycling

In what could be a relatively fast development of circular recycling, it could be a crucial time for ink producers to ensure that they are involved from the start.

Products such as packaging destined for several life cycles of circular recycling need at the design stage a lot of development work, particularly on ink formulations.

Already vertically integrated supply chains are beginning to be set up with the initiative mainly being taken upstream by oil refineries. Neste, Finland’s main oil company, has already reached its target of becoming the world’s largest producer of renewable diesel. Now it is aiming to become a global leader in renewable and circular economy solutions providing waste-derived materials from its refineries to, for example, packaging companies and their suppliers.

Brand owners are not only wanting “clean” recyclable inks from ink producers but also inks or effects which help boost the effectiveness of the sorting process.

Ink producers are joining or forming alliances for developing circular technologies that respond to the needs of brand owners, retail chains and other potential big customers for recycled re-used packaging and other circular products.

Several European branches of ink companies, including Sun Chemical, Flint Group and Siegwerk, late last year joined HolyGrail 2.0, a project of the European Brand Association (AIM) for developing technologies for improving automated detection and sorting within current recycling systems.

One option being investigated is the application of an optical code using digital watermarking technology printed onto the whole expanse of the printed package.

“HolyGrail 2.0 aligns perfectly with our vision to support the packaging industry achieve a circular economy by developing responsibly-built products and sustainable solutions,” said Paul Winstanley, senior director, technology and innovation at Flint Group Packaging Inks.

Not surprisingly, ink producers and others in the plastic packaging supply chain are currently waiting until future trends in the sector become clearer before committing large sums to the development of new circular technologies.

Under EU legislation, 50% of plastic packaging in the EU must be recycled by 2025, which analysts calculate will mean the current annual recycled total of around 4.6 million metric tons will have to be doubled in less than five years.

Against a likely background of falling crude oil prices which will give virgin materials a distinct cost advantage, the EU target will be unachievable without the aid of subsidies for recyclates. This will be a big test for the resolve of EU governments. 

European Editor Sean Milmo is an Essex, UK-based writer specializing in coverage of the chemical industry.