Liner recycling initiative launches

The Tag and Label Manufacturers Institute (TLMI), Nashville, Tennessee, and CELAB North America, an ad-hoc industry coalition founded in 2020 with about 50 member companies, will merge their efforts to research and identify recycling solutions for silicone-coated label release liner through a unified TLMI project called the Liner Recycling Initiative (LRI).

“The goal of the initiative is to build on the work done to date by both organizations and conduct regional pilots,” TLMI President Linnea Keen says. “These regional pilots will qualify silicone-coated paper release liner with known recycling and end markets before scaling the program through a deliberate build-out. Collaboration with CELAB will serve to expand and elevate all existing liner recycling programs and advance marketplace solutions more quickly.”

TLMI and its implementation partner, Resource Recycling Systems (RRS), Ann Arbor, Michigan, will reach out to interested partners within target regions to participate in the six-month pilots. TLMI’s goal for the initiative is a national recycling program for users of labels with silicone-coated paper release liners.

The pilot will be directed at small and large generators of silicone-coated paper release liner and built around regional end markets in the upper Midwest or the Northeast. One mill operator has tested and qualified silicone-coated release liner, which is a major step in helping the supply chain establish best practices and developing a road map for generators on how to divert this material from landfill and recycle it.

“The collaboration between TLMI and CELAB, along with the proven track record of RRS, will bring significant value and focus to what each group has been working on independently," says Tim Rummel, acting president of CELAB North America.

For more information about LRI, contact TLMI Vice President of Sustainability Rosalyn Bandy rosalyn.bandy@tlmi.com and check the LRI website for upcoming announcements. Learn more at the upcoming AWA/TLMI printTHINK Seminar, Sept. 8, in Rosemont, Illinois, and the TLMI Annual Meeting, beginning Sept. 29, in Orlando, Florida.