Redacción Alabrent
At the ceremony held at Silverstone racetrack, Flint Group was recognised for the development of inks and coatings which enhance recyclability, supporting the creation of a circular economy, and have a positive impact on sustainability within the label and packaging value chains.Flint Group Narrow Web was awarded bronze for its Evolution Primer & Varnish in the Technical Innovation (Supplier) category and Flint Group Packaging received a bronze award for the prestigious Supplier of the Year, which is voted for by printers and customer partners. Meanwhile, 80% of the awards handed out on the night were won by companies using Flint Group inks and coatings on their packaging.
Thomas Gray, Vice President of Strategy & Marketing said: “We would like to congratulate all the winners at this year’s FIAUK Print Awards. We are extremely proud to supply inks and coatings to so many of the award winners, reflecting our continued commitment to innovation and support to the flexographic industry.
“At Flint Group, we understand the importance of sustainability and were delighted that our Evolution range of coating solutions was recognised by the judges for its contribution to simplifying the label and sleeve recycling process.
“We are very honoured to be acknowledged by the FIAUK in achieving the bronze award in the Supplier of the Year category. This is a testament to the hard work and ingenuity of everyone in our team, who have gone above and beyond this year to push the boundary of what we can achieve for our customers. We are grateful to the judges and the industry for recognising our hard work in making packaging more sustainable, and we look forward to building on this success in the future.”
Flint Group Narrow Web launched the Evolution Series of coating products in the autumn of 2021. The UV-flexo coating solutions were developed to improve the recyclability for shrink sleeves and pressure sensitive labels.
Using different chemistries, the Evolution Deinking Primer, for shrink sleeves, and the Evolution Caustic Resistant Overprint Varnish (OPV), for self-adhesive labels, were designed to increase the yield of material in the recycling process. Both coatings have been recognised by the Association of Plastic Recyclers to comply with the critical guidance for PET packaging.
The ‘plug and play’ solutions enable better recycling without impacting ink colour, image quality, code readability or application performance, enabling converters to transition to the new coatings smoothly and easily.