I have made a little more progress in my search for an environmentally friendly label manufacturer. Last week I came across a company called Berkshire Labels who make biodegradable labels that conform to EN 13432, the European Standard that means that the packaging is compostable. Since I’m also looking at making our paper bag range compostable, I contacted them for a quote for the labels on this range. They responded very quickly and gave me a lot of information about their product. The main advantage in Berkshire Labels’ Biotak range is that they use a fully compostable adhesive whereas most other label manufacturers that claim to have “eco” label ranges just use the normal glue but less of it. As far as I know they are the only label manufacturer that is close to having a product that conforms to EN 13432 which means that they are entitled to display the seedling logo on their labels to show they are home compostable.

They also gave me the details of a company called Fibre Fuel who collect label backing paper, amongst other things, to turn into fuel pellets that can be burnt as a form of renewable energy. Since I cannot find any company who will recycle label backing paper, burning it for energy is the next best thing. I think that the sort of volumes of material that we are producing here might be too small for Fibre Fuel to be interested in making a collection but it’s worth a try anyway and I will enquire about it anyway.