Eco-Friendly Custom Stickers & Product Labels

The adhesive used on our custom stickers and labels is a recycle-compatible acrylic emulsion adhesive, which is acrylic suspended in water. There are several things to consider when asking if a sticker or label is plastic-free, so we developed this resource to help explain how plastics are defined and characterized across the industry.

Largely, we consider an acrylic emulsion-based paint or adhesive to contain plastic (as acrylic is a form of plastic, derived from petroleum). We know many in the industry consider acrylic emulsion adhesives to be “plastic-free” but we want to be more transparent about what the material contains.

Paper-based packaging, including stickers and labels, that use these adhesives can typically still be composted because it represents such a tiny percentage of the overall material. In our conversations with composters, adhesives in such small amounts do not currently compromise the yield of the compost they produce. If you choose to compost these materials, double-check with your composting service first - do they accept things like cardboard or corrugated boxes and envelopes? If so, they would accept packaging that uses polymer adhesives as its sealant.

As with all EcoEnclose products, the optimum end-of-life scenario is recycling, which is the basis for how we design our products. The acrylic emulsion adhesive is recycle-compatible, which we believe to be the more sustainable option over composting to perpetuate a circular economy and drive the market toward improved recycling infrastructure. You can read more about how we design our products by visiting our Sustainable Packaging Framework.

A release liner is a material that carries a substrate with a pressure-sensitive adhesive until that adhesive is ready for its next step. It is sometimes called a backing or carrier. Many common items have release liners - adhesive bandages such as Band-Aids, feminine products, stamps, pressure-sensitive tape, heavy-duty mailers, labels, and stickers to name a few!

Traditionally, release liners are made out of a base substrate, such as supercalendered paper, glassine, or PET. This base substrate is then typically coated with a layer of silicone (or sometimes another type of release agent). This coating gives it release properties. The vast majority of release liners are made with 100% virgin materials and are either unrecyclable or are extremely difficult to recycle. A standard silicone-coated release liner must be sent to one of very few manufacturers in the US (like Fox River) that has the equipment needed to separate the silicone from the paper, so the paper can be recycled.

EcoEnclose’s Zero Waste Label Release Liner is made of 100% post-consumer waste and curbside recyclable with mixed paper. Through a unique, patent-pending process, the facestock of these labels and stickers is coated with adhesive before being laid onto the Zero Waste release liner (versus the standard process in which a silicone coated release liner is covered with acrylic adhesive and the facestock is applied to it).

The Zero Waste Label Release Liner is currently being offered on Direct Thermal Shipping Labels, Laser Printer Sheet Labels, and Custom Stickers and Product Labels.

When pairing a sticker facestock with a substrate, the optimum solution will be matching the end-of-life scenarios or making sure that the materials can be recycled the same way. Because our custom sticker offerings are limited to plastic and paper, any of them can be placed onto aluminum or glass, because they will all be screened out during the aluminum/glass recycling process anyway.

If you are packaging liquids, we recommend going with a stronger plastic facestock, such as the BOPP Zero Waste sticker, or the Clear Standard sticker. The BOPP Sticker is virgin material and comes on the Zero Waste liner, which is fully curbside recyclable. The Clear Sticker is 90% post-consumer waste that comes on the Standard liner, which is not curbside recyclable.