The Finnish paper company UPM has signed a cooperation agreement with film recycling company Aliplast France to develop a program to recover release liner paper generated from various European sources. Aliplast France is a subsidiary of the Italian company Aliplast.

Release liners are paper or plastic-based materials coated on one or both sides with a chemical agent, that helps prevent them from bonding with adhesives or a mastic gums.

The partnership between the two companies is expected to expand Aliplast’s recycling services to include polypropylene (PP) and paper-based release liners through UPM Raflatac’s RafCycle waste management concept, which takes the byproducts generated through the life cycle of self-adhesive label stock and turns them into a new raw material.

Under the agreement Aliplast will collect, sort and distribute various release liners to different recycling processes.

Through the program, large collection bags will be installed by Aliplast for use by self-adhesive label end users. Aliplast will collect the bags and ship them to the company’s two sorting centers in France. After sorting, the material will be transported to end consumers.

Polypropylene liners, including UPM Raflatac’s ProLiner PP30, will be reused as raw material to make wood-plastic composite products at UPM ProFi’s facility in Bruchsal, Germany. Other wrapping films will be recycled into packaging products by Aliplast Italy.

Aliplast also collects paper-based release liners for fiber re-use. The recovered paper liners are re-pulped and de-siliconized with the pulp being used for papermaking at UPM’s paper mills.