Low carbon food label alternative

19 July 2021

TrakRap believes it has solved one of the biggest barriers to fully recyclable secondary packaging for the food and drink sector, with the launch of TrakCoder, a sustainable, low-carbon alternative to ITF labels.

Traditionally, Linear Low-Density Polyethylene film (LLDPE) used in both cold wrap or shrink wrap which has a paper ITP barcode label fixed to it becomes immediately ‘contaminated’ and cannot be easily recycled. Most recycling plants require different substrates to be separated, leading to 46% of film with paper ITF Labels being sent to landfill. This is estimated to contribute to almost 600,000 tonnes of LLDPE film going to landfill per year.

The TrakCoder printer uses a specialist ink which will breakaway during the recycling process, making it affordable and easy to recycle the full secondary pack for the very first time. The solution consists of a Thermal Transfer Overprinter (TTO) being integrated into the Trakrap packaging system. The printer allows an ITF to be printed on the same substrate as the main pack, removing any chance of contamination.