FITCHBURG, Mass. — September 10, 2020 — Avery Dennison Corp. Fastener Solutions has launched a tag fastener for the apparel industry that completely degrades within one year of exposure to soil microorganisms, without leaving behind microplastics or harmful substances.
“Plastic fasteners, which attach price tags and other product information to garments are on 90 percent of the approximately 80 billion garments manufactured each year and that adds up to a whole lot of plastic — the equivalent of the same amount of plastic found in 761,581,156 single-serve 0.5 liter PET water bottles,” said Dan Riendeau, senior marketing manager, Global Packaging and Retail, Avery Dennison Fastener Solutions. “Brand owners and retailers are increasingly seeking ways to reduce their environmental footprint and this product innovation helps to do that. As a materials science innovator, we’re excited to grow this product line and offer our customers more options and a solution that is not dependent on consumer recycling behaviors.” he added.
The new bio-PP Fastener is made out of a proprietary blend of polypropylene material specifically designed to biodegrade in les3s than a year once it is on soil, without leaving behind microplastic or other harmful substances. Comparatively speaking, a regular polypropylene fastener can take anywhere from 20 to 30 years to breakdown and depending on environment conditions, an everyday plastic bag can take 10 to 20 years to decompose while also leaving behind adverse microplastics.
The product and its environmental performance has been verified by Impact Solutions, an independent plastic expert with over 100 years of combined experience in plastics, failure analysis, and product development.
The launch of the Ecotach™ bio-PP Fastener follows the April launch of the Ecotach line of recycled fasteners from Avery Dennison. “With these new technologies, we’re able to help brands advance circularity initiatives to keep plastic products in use or offer them a sustainable solution that removes single use plastic altogether,” said Riendeau.
Among Avery Dennison’s 2025 Sustainability Goals is a commitment calling for 70 percent of the products Avery Dennison sells to conform to, or enable end products to conform to, the company’s sustainability principles.
Posted September 10, 2020
Source: Avery Dennison
