Label Release Liner: Looking to the Future

A panel discussion on paper versus plastic, supply dynamics, and growth drivers, followed, moderated by Reardon. Panelists representing the lobby for paper were Marko Haveri from UPM-Kymmene and Anna Wessman, Ahlstrom; and film lobbyists were Bill Wells of Mitsubishi Polyester Film and James Godden, Polyplex. The debate about the products’ relative merits continued; but the outcome of the discussion confirmed that, overall, the label release liner industry’s long-term concern is the raft of impending packaging waste legislation and the possibility that release liner may be declared (across Europe at least) to be packaging waste, and therefore subject to a punitive financial levy.