Is It Time to Stop Using Glue and Labels on Paper Packaging?
Adhesives known in the industry as stickies can damage recycling machinery and downgrade entire batches of paper, and tightening European rules are forcing manufacturers to find alternatives.
Paper and cardboard packaging may be recyclable in principle, but a label, seal or coating can be enough to stop it being recycled in practice, the BBC reported.
The problem is adhesives — known in the industry as "stickies". According to scientists at NC State University, non-recyclable adhesives can damage recycling machinery, lower the quality of the resulting batch of recycled paper, or cause a batch to be rejected outright.
A problem attached to a success story
That matters because paper is among the most successfully recycled materials in Europe. Around 74% of the paper and board consumed across the continent in 2024 was recycled.
Against that rate, adhesives represent a comparatively small obstacle standing in the way of an otherwise well-functioning system — which is precisely why the industry has begun to focus on it.
Regulation tightening the deadline
New Europe-wide packaging and packaging waste regulation, which came into force in August, requires all packaging to be at least 70% recyclable by 2030, rising to 80% from 2038. German law adds stricter reporting requirements and licensing fees on top.
Those thresholds change the calculation for manufacturers. A component that merely complicates recycling today can push a product below a mandated percentage tomorrow, with financial penalties attached.
The alternatives being developed
One line of work has been water-soluble adhesives, which release cleanly during the pulping process rather than fragmenting into the mix.
A second approach comes from three German firms — Fraunhofer, Herrmann Ultraschall and Henkel — which have developed a laser-based sealing process that removes the need for a separate adhesive.
That all three are German is not a coincidence. The country is home to what is known as Packaging Valley, a cluster of packaging manufacturers, and their work is driven in part by tightening domestic regulation and rising fines for non-compliance.
Why it is harder than it sounds
An adhesive on food packaging has to survive refrigeration, moisture and handling, then fail predictably at the recycling plant. Those requirements pull in opposite directions, which is why the problem has persisted despite being well understood.
For consumers, the practical implication is that recyclability is not a property of the material alone. A cardboard sleeve and a plastic-coated label can end up in the same bin and meet very different fates.
Reporting basis: BBC Technology.
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