David Savastano, Editor02.07.22
Sustainability has become an important goal for all of business, and the ink industry is no exception. The advantages are clear enough, and the dangers of ignoring the problems that sustainability covers should also be clear.
Not surprisingly, key raw material manufacturers say that their ink customers are looking closely at more sustainable approaches such as cradle-to-cradle product development.
Joon Choo, president of Shamrock Technologies, said that sustainability is an important topic during conversations with ink manufacturers.
“This is becoming more of a discussion item, as more customers calculate their percentage of recycled material, biodegradable, renewable materials and carbon footprint with contribution from Shamrock’s technical team,” Choo said.
Nikola Juhasz, Ph.D., global technical director of sustainability at Sun Chemical, said that ink companies’ interest in sustainability varies, making it a topic that comes up during conversations with some organizations.
“Many CPGs are setting ambitious sustainability targets for their organizations with goals of providing high levels of recyclable or renewable packaging as early as 2025, while reducing their use of plastics in packaging,” Dr. Juhasz added. “And this isn’t unique to them. For manufacturers, converters and brand owners, setting realistic sustainability goals is of growing importance.”
Tim-Frederic Sloot, head of sustainability and innovation performance, Coating Additives at Evonik, reported that Evonik observes a very high demand in sustainability and regulatory requirements in the printing inks industry.
“Topics such as food contact compliance of ink/coating formulation, migration level of individual components, and the reduction of VOCs have become some of the most critical aspects for printing inks formulations,” Sloot observed. “On top of this, there is an increasing interest for ink components from renewable or recycled resources. Recycling, biodegradability, and circularity are strong trends in the packaging inks industry. Evonik is a member of the CEFLEX (Circular Economy for Flexible Packaging) collaborative initiative to actively support this trend towards circular packaging solutions.”
“We have definitely seen a growing interest in sustainability, compostability, and recyclability over the past several recent years,” said Gene Cassidy, senior manager, corporate accounts & customer service, North American Research Center for Lawter.
“Most of our ink customers come from Europe and the United States,” said Falko Orlowski, VP of Trust Chem | NA. “They have strict standards for the procurement of raw materials, especially the relevant regulations on additives and pigments in food packaging materials such as printing ink. Our company has a special EHS team responsible for meeting the requirements of compliance supervision and customer sustainable development.
“Our EHS team has an instrumental analysis laboratory where we can carry out qualitative analysis of products and quantitative detection of impurities,” added Orlowski. “This includes, in particular, experiments to identify harmful substances banned by regulations, and we provide technical support for synthetic tests and internal quality controls. Trust Chem is also involved in the coordination of a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) evaluation.”
Simon K. Foster, industry marketing manager, Printing, Packaging, & Adhesives - Dispersions & Resins North America for BASF, said that sustainability is a key customer need, and it will only grow in prominence as we move forward.
“Due to its broad definition, sustainability can play a number of varied roles in customer discussions, whether it’s related to sustainable raw materials, product circularity or even the long-term volatility of raw materials,” Foster added. “We are actively partnering with many ink and coating formulators, as well as players further down the value chain, to support the industry in reaching our long-term goals. Collaboration is critical to support the adoption of more sustainable products and approaches; this will be even more necessary as we move towards many of the industry commitments to implement more sustainable packaging by 2025.”
Key Sustainability Initiatives
While ink companies are showing increased interest in major sustainability initiatives, their suppliers are also supporting these approaches.
Choo pointed out that sustainability and recycling are core values at Shamrock.
“Our research and development laboratories work with globally sourced materials and partners to find and develop high performance additives using recycled or bio-based renewable materials in our search to find the best performing materials that fulfil customers’ needs without compromising on the effectiveness or cost,” Choo said.
“We are continuously improving on control of our products to ensure compliance to the tightening regulatory standards, as we continue to serve as a responsible member of the community in helping to preserve our environment, which is why we started with the recycling of PTFE over 40 years ago,” Choo added. “The use of recycled PTFE reduces the amount of waste that ends up in landfills. To date, we have recycled more than 150 million pounds of PTFE. As a result of our commitment, we have effectively also saved an estimated 15 billion pounds of CO2 emissions.”
Orlowski said that in terms of sustainability, Trust Chem has taken a series of measures.
“First, in response to the national call for energy conservation, we have selected advanced equipment and adopted optimized process design schemes, such as heat recovery and reuse technology, to improve production efficiency and reduce energy consumption,” said Orlowski. “In addition, we have adopted a new process to reduce the COD in the discharged sewage and reduce the pollution. Some of our auxiliary raw materials use bio-based materials.”
Cassidy noted that Lawter has engaged in compostability studies with several product chemistries in an effort to determine the best approach to formulate resins that meet the requirements of being compostable.
“We have also worked to improve the recyclability of various packaging labels,” said Cassidy. “Additionally, we have undertaken joint projects on carbon 14 bio-organic carbon testing as well as low migration products.”
Ruth Bauer, global sustainability manager, Colors & Effects for Sun Chemical, said that when developing new pigment products, Sun Chemical looks closely at the sustainability demands of the ink market.
“Ink manufacturers are looking for raw materials and natural resources to formulate inks that improve the compostability, recyclability and bio-renewability of their various commercial and packaging product lines,” Bauer said.
Sloot noted that Evonik recently initiated the Circular Plastics Program, which focuses on solutions for the plastics industry to close its cycles as well as on Evonik products based on recycled feedstocks. He said that another example is the development of biosurfactants for the cosmetics and household industries, but also coatings and inks industries.
“Such products are made from renewable, non-tropical resources and are readily biodegradable,” Sloot reported. “In various formulations, they show superior performance characteristics. We are also trying to use carbon dioxide as raw material for chemicals. In the project Rheticus, we combine a bioreactor with an electrolyzer to create high-value specialty chemicals out of carbon dioxide.”
Foster said that at a broader level, BASF has taken on a leadership role in many global initiatives to move the causes of sustainability and circularity forward.
“We are supporting those commitments with investment into the development of key innovations that will enable the industry to achieve meaningful progress towards our goals,” added Foster. “For example, we have a growing portfolio of water-based barrier products that enable the further repulpability and recyclability of packaging that is currently destined for landfill. These products also enable the broader industry to further convert packaging formats from plastic to paper, which can be more readily recycled in existing infrastructure.
“Beyond circularity, the ink and coatings industry is also focused on the sustainability of raw materials, particularly the increasing use of bio-renewable content,” Foster noted. “BASF will address this growing need with an expanded portfolio of bio-based and bio-containing products that enable formulations with high levels of bio-content and come with minimal performance tradeoffs.”
Not surprisingly, key raw material manufacturers say that their ink customers are looking closely at more sustainable approaches such as cradle-to-cradle product development.
Joon Choo, president of Shamrock Technologies, said that sustainability is an important topic during conversations with ink manufacturers.
“This is becoming more of a discussion item, as more customers calculate their percentage of recycled material, biodegradable, renewable materials and carbon footprint with contribution from Shamrock’s technical team,” Choo said.
Nikola Juhasz, Ph.D., global technical director of sustainability at Sun Chemical, said that ink companies’ interest in sustainability varies, making it a topic that comes up during conversations with some organizations.
“Many CPGs are setting ambitious sustainability targets for their organizations with goals of providing high levels of recyclable or renewable packaging as early as 2025, while reducing their use of plastics in packaging,” Dr. Juhasz added. “And this isn’t unique to them. For manufacturers, converters and brand owners, setting realistic sustainability goals is of growing importance.”
Tim-Frederic Sloot, head of sustainability and innovation performance, Coating Additives at Evonik, reported that Evonik observes a very high demand in sustainability and regulatory requirements in the printing inks industry.
“Topics such as food contact compliance of ink/coating formulation, migration level of individual components, and the reduction of VOCs have become some of the most critical aspects for printing inks formulations,” Sloot observed. “On top of this, there is an increasing interest for ink components from renewable or recycled resources. Recycling, biodegradability, and circularity are strong trends in the packaging inks industry. Evonik is a member of the CEFLEX (Circular Economy for Flexible Packaging) collaborative initiative to actively support this trend towards circular packaging solutions.”
“We have definitely seen a growing interest in sustainability, compostability, and recyclability over the past several recent years,” said Gene Cassidy, senior manager, corporate accounts & customer service, North American Research Center for Lawter.
“Most of our ink customers come from Europe and the United States,” said Falko Orlowski, VP of Trust Chem | NA. “They have strict standards for the procurement of raw materials, especially the relevant regulations on additives and pigments in food packaging materials such as printing ink. Our company has a special EHS team responsible for meeting the requirements of compliance supervision and customer sustainable development.
“Our EHS team has an instrumental analysis laboratory where we can carry out qualitative analysis of products and quantitative detection of impurities,” added Orlowski. “This includes, in particular, experiments to identify harmful substances banned by regulations, and we provide technical support for synthetic tests and internal quality controls. Trust Chem is also involved in the coordination of a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) evaluation.”
Simon K. Foster, industry marketing manager, Printing, Packaging, & Adhesives - Dispersions & Resins North America for BASF, said that sustainability is a key customer need, and it will only grow in prominence as we move forward.
“Due to its broad definition, sustainability can play a number of varied roles in customer discussions, whether it’s related to sustainable raw materials, product circularity or even the long-term volatility of raw materials,” Foster added. “We are actively partnering with many ink and coating formulators, as well as players further down the value chain, to support the industry in reaching our long-term goals. Collaboration is critical to support the adoption of more sustainable products and approaches; this will be even more necessary as we move towards many of the industry commitments to implement more sustainable packaging by 2025.”
Key Sustainability Initiatives
While ink companies are showing increased interest in major sustainability initiatives, their suppliers are also supporting these approaches.
Choo pointed out that sustainability and recycling are core values at Shamrock.
“Our research and development laboratories work with globally sourced materials and partners to find and develop high performance additives using recycled or bio-based renewable materials in our search to find the best performing materials that fulfil customers’ needs without compromising on the effectiveness or cost,” Choo said.
“We are continuously improving on control of our products to ensure compliance to the tightening regulatory standards, as we continue to serve as a responsible member of the community in helping to preserve our environment, which is why we started with the recycling of PTFE over 40 years ago,” Choo added. “The use of recycled PTFE reduces the amount of waste that ends up in landfills. To date, we have recycled more than 150 million pounds of PTFE. As a result of our commitment, we have effectively also saved an estimated 15 billion pounds of CO2 emissions.”
Orlowski said that in terms of sustainability, Trust Chem has taken a series of measures.
“First, in response to the national call for energy conservation, we have selected advanced equipment and adopted optimized process design schemes, such as heat recovery and reuse technology, to improve production efficiency and reduce energy consumption,” said Orlowski. “In addition, we have adopted a new process to reduce the COD in the discharged sewage and reduce the pollution. Some of our auxiliary raw materials use bio-based materials.”
Cassidy noted that Lawter has engaged in compostability studies with several product chemistries in an effort to determine the best approach to formulate resins that meet the requirements of being compostable.
“We have also worked to improve the recyclability of various packaging labels,” said Cassidy. “Additionally, we have undertaken joint projects on carbon 14 bio-organic carbon testing as well as low migration products.”
Ruth Bauer, global sustainability manager, Colors & Effects for Sun Chemical, said that when developing new pigment products, Sun Chemical looks closely at the sustainability demands of the ink market.
“Ink manufacturers are looking for raw materials and natural resources to formulate inks that improve the compostability, recyclability and bio-renewability of their various commercial and packaging product lines,” Bauer said.
Sloot noted that Evonik recently initiated the Circular Plastics Program, which focuses on solutions for the plastics industry to close its cycles as well as on Evonik products based on recycled feedstocks. He said that another example is the development of biosurfactants for the cosmetics and household industries, but also coatings and inks industries.
“Such products are made from renewable, non-tropical resources and are readily biodegradable,” Sloot reported. “In various formulations, they show superior performance characteristics. We are also trying to use carbon dioxide as raw material for chemicals. In the project Rheticus, we combine a bioreactor with an electrolyzer to create high-value specialty chemicals out of carbon dioxide.”
Foster said that at a broader level, BASF has taken on a leadership role in many global initiatives to move the causes of sustainability and circularity forward.
“We are supporting those commitments with investment into the development of key innovations that will enable the industry to achieve meaningful progress towards our goals,” added Foster. “For example, we have a growing portfolio of water-based barrier products that enable the further repulpability and recyclability of packaging that is currently destined for landfill. These products also enable the broader industry to further convert packaging formats from plastic to paper, which can be more readily recycled in existing infrastructure.
“Beyond circularity, the ink and coatings industry is also focused on the sustainability of raw materials, particularly the increasing use of bio-renewable content,” Foster noted. “BASF will address this growing need with an expanded portfolio of bio-based and bio-containing products that enable formulations with high levels of bio-content and come with minimal performance tradeoffs.”
