With modern data highlighting the environmental impacts of irresponsibly disposed-of packaging and products, consumers and brand owners alike have united in their push for more sustainable packaging options in the past few years.
As a leading North American supplier of polyethylene (PE) films that touch a wide variety of markets and industries, we responded directly to these calls by launching our InteGreen™ family of sustainable PE films back in 2020. With sustainability built into the core principals of Inteplast Group, we felt that it was our responsibility to bring legitimately sustainable plastic packaging solutions to our customers.
Since launching the InteGreen brand, we’ve worked with many industry-leading manufacturers of flexible packaging to help them design innovative sustainable packaging alternatives that are used in a wide variety of applications today. From films for ecommerce mailer bags made with high amounts of recycled content, to multi-material coextrusions featuring compatibilizers for recycling, IEF’s InteGreen films can be found on shelves and in households all across North America.
Here’s an update on some of our InteGreen product categories.
Films with Recycled Content
InteGreen films made with post-consumer (PCR) and post-industrial (PIR) recycled resins make use of plastic recyclables that have completed their lives as consumer or industrial products. The use of recycled content resins helps to reduce the need for virgin plastic material, resulting in fewer fossil fuels being consumed and substantially minimized opportunities for new plastic to turn into environmental leakage.
All of our recycled content resins are third party of self-certified to ensure the highest levels of quality and consistency in every roll of film we produce.
IEF has an extensive portfolio of standard product blends that can be customized with varying amounts of recycled content - often without significant changes to film performance. Reach out to an IEF representative today to learn more about our recycled content films.
All-PE Recyclable Films
Our all-PE, mono-material standard products are inherently recyclable when used as a standalone film.
In addition, our portfolio of How2Recycle® pre-qualified films for Store Drop-off recycling is constantly expanding. A finished product with the How2Recycle label educates consumers on how to discard the used package at participating Store Drop-off locations. Note that the final package’s How2Recycle label may change due to product application and other factors, and any brands interested in using the label must be a member with How2Recycle.
Recycle Ready
Greenwashing has made us all weary of the truth behind recyclable claims.
Our Recycle Ready films feature multi-material compatibilizers that enable the recycling of previously non-recyclable co-extrusions through the existing PE recycling stream.
InteGreen Recycle Ready films are just as the name suggests – ready for recycling. To learn more about our Recycle Ready compatibilized films, click here.
PFAS-Compliant Films
As a response to recent legislative decisions banning the use of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), IEF has committed to the elimination of PFAS materials from our products and processes.
A significant number of PFAS-compliant versions of our standard products are already available for trial, and several others are in development.
Compostable Films
Our InteGreen compostable films are made exclusively with home or industrial compostable resins, and are designed with the same industry-leading performance and quality standards you’ve come to expect from IEF’s products.
Applications include home compost bags and fruit labels, and customization options include different colors and slip levels.
Interested in more information regarding our InteGreen Family of Sustainable Films? Reach out to an IEF representative today.
